Paul Flynn: Is not the call for a ban on khat based on the naive, mistaken belief that banning drugs eliminates their use while in fact the reverse is true? Millions of people in Britain use illegal drugs every day. Would not a ban on khat drive a wedge between the police forces and the Somali and Yemeni communities, encourage khat users to use far more addictive and dangerous drugs such as alcohol and tobacco and change legal businesses into criminal ones overnight, and also place a burden—

Paul Goggins: My hon. Friend and the Government have a rather different view of the control of drugs. It was due to concern about the health and other impacts of khat use in the communities that he mentioned that the issue was referred to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. The council has made its assessment and its report, and the Home Secretary is considering it. He will make his decision and an announcement in due course.

Paul Goggins: A great deal. The drug interventions programme, which is at the heart of what we are doing in relation to drug-misusing offenders, is the key. More than 2,000 drug-misusing offenders a month are going into treatment through the programme. At the same time, crime levels are falling. That has to be a good message, which I hope will be welcomed by the hon. and learned Gentleman: with the intervention and the investments we are making drug-related crime is falling while the numbers coming into treatment are increasing.

David Gauke: Does the Home Secretary not accept that, under the current arrangements, we already lack adequate directly elected, local accountability and that the move towards larger forces will merely make this matter worse? For example, in Hertfordshire, we currently have a police authority of 16 members, none of whom is directly elected, but nine of whom are at least county councillors. If we move towards an eastern region force, which is one of the options that the Government are considering, we will have a police authority of up to 23 members, of which at most two will be Hertfordshire county councillors. Is the Home Secretary merely making a bad position worse?

Rob Marris: Part of local accountability is to do with local funding. Will my right hon. Friend say what would happen, for example, in the greater west midlands, if there is amalgamation, where the precept levels between the different police authorities are markedly different?

Charles Clarke: As my hon. Friend knows, three of the four forces in the west midlands region favour this amalgamation. There are issues, as he rightly says, about the precept and how it can be brought together effectively. That is precisely one of the issues on which the forces themselves have made proposals and which we will discuss with them. I can assure him that we will come to a sensible conclusion in that regard, but we will not allow that to present a blockage to the sensible proposals supported by three out of four forces in the west midlands.

Brian Jenkins: My right hon. Friend is correct to emphasise the basic command unit, which meets the population face to face in its daily working arrangements. However, when he talks about consultation, does he realise that many people, particular in the shire counties, would want a guarantee that in any amalgamated force the police officers from our shire counties are not sucked into the west midlands? How can we have real accountability, rather than consultation, under his arrangements?

Elfyn Llwyd: The Home Secretary will undoubtedly appreciate that policing is always by consent, and that the quid pro quo for that is good local accountability. Will he explain how the awful vista of one force for the whole of Wales will increase local accountability in the north of the country, when it takes five to six hours to drive from Cardiff up to north Wales?

William Cash: The Home Secretary may know that there is significant opposition in Staffordshire and my constituency of Stone to the proposals that the police forces in the west midlands be amalgamated. To what extent does he really believe that, when we are dealing with regional systems such as would be set up in the west midlands, the philosophy and the attitude that is relevant to dealing with very large urban areas such as the west midlands would be applicable to rural constituencies such as Stone and others in Staffordshire?

Charles Clarke: I am familiar with the hon. Gentleman's leadership bids in relation to these matters. I can give him a commitment on the second of his points, but not on the first. The commitment that I can give him is that the full financial facts in relation to any particular proposal will be in front of everybody including council tax payers in any locality. I cannot give him the commitment that police authorities around the country would have a veto on change. That would be utterly ridiculous in circumstances in which the police themselves say that we have to ensure that our policing meets modern 21st century needs. That is what I am determined to deliver.

Hazel Blears: I am aware that a variety of estimates of the costs of change are being floated. I do not believe that all of those are well-founded. The independent chartered institute of public finance and accountability will be working with forces and authorities over the next few weeks to establish the real costs of change and future benefits. We will then consider the position further.

Hazel Blears: I am sure that my hon. Friend accepts that before the Government make any commitments, it is absolutely imperative to have the full, accurate and rigorous financial examination that we will go through here. We have discussed with the Association of Police Authorities how we can fund the up-front costs—there will be some. We have decided to set aside £50 million of capital expenditure this year and £75 million next year so that we can bridge some of the costs that might well fall on us. There are other options, such as reprioritising already-planned investment decisions for several forces. There might well be a question of some prudential borrowing. Among those three areas, I am sure that we can meet the costs and reap the advantages.

Iain Duncan Smith: The Minister tells us that she is making sense of what the costs will be, but we all know that in every single Government change, reshuffle or reorganisation, regardless of who is in power, costs have always been underestimated—for example, the costs of changing letterheads, signposts and badges and respraying cars. She knows very well that that will happen, so if she will not have an independent inquiry will she at least give an undertaking that the Home Office will cover all the non-operational costs—the costs of those extra changes—that will be incurred as a direct result of these ludicrous proposals?

Nick Herbert: The Association of Police Authorities has estimated the costs of the amalgamations at between £500 million and £600 million. By contrast, the Minister has said that only £125 million will be available, belatedly, to meet those costs. Will the right hon. Lady tell us whether that is new money or whether it is coming from existing police capital budgets? Will she explain how the gap, to coin a phrase, will be closed? Is it not the case that inevitably the cost and the difference will be met by local taxpayers?

Hazel Blears: I think that I have already made it clear to the hon. Gentleman that with the assistance of CIPFA we shall be carrying out a rigorous cost-benefit analysis. I do not necessarily accept some of the figures that have been put forward. I do not think that they are an accurate reflection of the costs that will be involved. It is extremely important that we have a rigorous analysis of what the true costs are. I ask the hon. Gentleman to think clearly. One of the costs of doing nothing and one of the costs of being so conservative is that we do not make the necessary changes that Denis O'Connor, Her Majesty's inspector, has recommended. If we do not take these steps, we leave the United Kingdom vulnerable to serious and organised crime and without the ability to deal with that or to provide counter-terrorism measures. I say to the hon. Gentleman that—

Keith Vaz: Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the allegations made by Anthony Pamnani of the Immigration and Nationality Directorate, who has said that applications for extensions of leave are routinely granted? In his words, they are based on whether the applicant is good-looking or ugly. Assuming that that does not represent a change in Government policy and that he condemns such practices, and bearing in mind his commitment to increase the service given by IND, what steps will he take to ensure that there are sufficient staffing levels to make sure that IND is the truly efficient and effective organisation that we would all like it to be?

Tony McNulty: I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I can tell him without reservation that there is no indication of a change in Government policy. I take the complaints of misconduct made by this individual, who used to work for IND, extremely seriously. To that end, on the day that the article appeared in a daily newspaper I instructed the director general of IND to present to me how the matter would be investigated. That investigation is now underway. It is headed by the non-executive director of IND, with support from within. I have undertaken also to publish as fully as I can the results of such an inquiry. We take these matters very seriously. If part of the equation, to which my hon. Friend alludes, is that more resources need at least to be considered in terms of the public inquiry office at Lunar house, I shall look at that.

Barbara Follett: I welcome the extra funding that has been made available, and urge my hon. Friend to try to ensure that large villages situated several miles apart such as Knebworth and Codicote in my constituency receive their own dedicated community support officer with transport. At present, Knebworth and Codicote share a CSO who, in turn, must share transport with several other officers based elsewhere in the county. That reduces the amount of time that he can spend on the beat and makes policing less effective.

Andy Burnham: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's question, which shows that, such is the success of CSOs, that communities increasingly want them to be in two places at once. Hertfordshire constabulary has 110 CSOs, but aims to have 359 as part of the expansion to which I referred. It is for the chief constable to decide how those officers are deployed, but I am sure that he will have heard her wish that the communities of Knebworth and Codicote should be better served once that expansion is complete.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Minister accept that CSOs, as welcome as they are, should always be in addition to, and never in place of, police officers. Can he give the House an assurance that, following amalgamation, there will be more police officers in rural areas, not just more support officers.

Ian Austin: I thank my hon. Friend for her answer. The whole House will welcome measures that show victims that we are on their side, but can she ensure that judges are properly advised by the Lord Chancellor to ensure that victims receive full compensation to reimburse them for losses caused by criminal activity? How can we do more to help people such as a constituent of mine who is due to receive only half of the £8,000 loss that he suffered after being deceived into paying for stolen goods? He will have to wait two years for it, because the crook only has to pay it weekly, even though the police have seized his assets.

Paul Goggins: We are considering what the standard powers of community support officers should be to ensure that they are properly empowered by the chief constable to work as part of the neighbourhood policing team. We want them to work in a highly visible way with police officers, community wardens and others to ensure not only that local people are reassured by their highly visible presence but that we crack down on crime in those neighbourhoods.

Andy Burnham: As the recent report on the DNA expansion programme confirms, the national DNA database is a key police intelligence tool and provides the police with around 3,000 intelligence matches each month, which are critical leads for police investigations. There has been a four-fold increase in the number of detections obtained through the use of DNA between 1999 and 2005. The database is helping to secure more convictions and bring more offenders to justice.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman has given me some notice, so I am able to help him on this matter. The Government's respect action plan is not a parliamentary paper, so the Vote office does not automatically hold copies. From time to time, Departments make available to Members through the Vote Office documents that they have published informally and that are linked to the work of the House. That is helpful, and I hope that Departments will continue to do that.

Lynne Jones: I beg to move that the clause be read a Second time.
	The new clause is intended to enable the protection of transsexual people from discrimination in the supply of goods and services by creating a power to introduce secondary legislation. It is a near copy of the provisions relating to the provisions on sexual orientation, which the Minister will be aware were not in the original Bill as introduced in the House of Lords, but were by the time it came to be considered by this House. That was partly as a result of the pressure applied by other hon. Members, including those, such as myself, who signed early-day motion 710 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Dr. Turner).
	That was a very welcome move on the part of the Government and it is unfortunate that the Government have so far chosen to ignore the requests for a similar provision in the case of transgender people; for example, 88 hon. Members signed early-day motion 1083 in my name on the Equality Bill and the supply of goods and services to transsexual people.
	There are three reasons for including the provision now: the need for protection, administrative efficiency and compliance with EU law. Society is much more accepting of transpeople today. The Gender Recognition Act 2002 was passed unopposed with all-party support, a far cry from 1994 when there was widespread discrimination against transsexual people, which led me to found the parliamentary forum on transsexualism.
	At that time, Ministers tolerated blatant discrimination in employment against transpeople. Nevertheless, discrimination continues. It took five years to see the introduction of the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations 1999, which amended the Sex Discrimination Act to prohibit discrimination in employment and vocational training. However, those regulations do not extend to discrimination in the supply of goods and services.
	The media has reported several cases involving transsexual people refused access to pubs. Press for Change, the lobby group on behalf of transpeople, is particularly concerned about young transsexual people who are forced to leave home when relationships with their families break down. Discrimination by private and institutional landlords means that these young and vulnerable transsexual people often encounter great difficulty in finding accommodation.
	The more widespread problem is that without legal protection against prejudice, many transsexual people censor their lives by taking care to avoid situations where they feel discrimination, knowing that the law currently leaves them with no redress. In that regard, we have made little progress since the time shortly after I was elected in 1992 when I was approached by a transsexual woman who was absolutely terrified of her gender status becoming known by her employer. It was that kind of discrimination that led to legal challenge and to the regulations that I have mentioned.
	In relation to the provision of goods and services, a few test cases have so far come to court, but most potential litigants stand down when advised that they have no case as the law currently stands. As I have said, the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) Regulations amended the Sex Discrimination Act in 1999 to prohibit discrimination in employment and vocational training. This was done to implement the 1996 ruling in the European Court of Justice in the case of P v S and Cornwall county council. That was the case of a transsexual woman who, having initially been promoted by the council, was then sacked by it when she informed it that she was going to undergo gender reassignment surgery.
	The directive determined that discrimination on grounds of sex includes discrimination on the ground of gender reassignment. Because the 1999 regulations were introduced under the terms of the European Communities Act 1972, they could not exceed the scope of the equal treatment directive. They extend only to employment and vocational training, and not to the rest of part III of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
	An opportunity to legislate for goods and services protection arose with the Gender Recognition Act 2004. At that time, however, Ministers preferred to wait for the outcome of discussions on a new EU directive on gender discrimination in goods and services. In Committee, the then Minister with responsibility for such matters, my hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr. Lammy), responded to a query from me as follows:
	"She is right in saying that there is nothing to prevent the Government from acting. However, as I indicated, we are in discussion with our partners in Europe. We have a draft directive as of three months ago, and it appears that there will be legislation on the matter. The Government welcome that and believe that it is right to have that dialogue with our European partners, come to a conclusion and then take the matter forward."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 16 March 2004; c. 186.]
	That conclusion was reached later in 2004. European Council directive 2004/113/EC, of 13 December 2004, implemented the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to, and supply of, goods and services. However, no provision was made in the Equality Bill to implement the directive, which surely would have been the obvious means of dealing with the issue. The Equality Bill is therefore the second missed legislative opportunity to provide that protection for transpeople.
	One major concern that the Government expressed about introducing such protection through the Bill was that a substantial amount of work would be required in considering whether any exceptions were necessary. Given that the 1975 Act already contains exceptions to cope with single-sex facilities, it should not be considered problematic that new exceptions are required to permit continued discrimination against transpeople. However, there are likely to be rare and complex situations in which exceptions may be needed—probably those involving people in the process of changing gender. The new clause would address that by introducing a power for Ministers to issue regulations creating exceptions. It is intentionally constructed as a replica of clause 81, which creates a power to introduce goods and services protection on the ground of sexual orientation. The new clause can therefore be presumed to be acceptable to the Government as a workable framework.
	However, the power to make regulations would allow Ministers to make any special provision that might be necessary, and it would ensure that Parliament does not have to satisfy itself at this stage that all possible exceptions have been considered. The provision allows more time and flexibility to ensure that the protection can be provided now, and in a way that works.
	Ministers have argued that it is not the right time for such a step. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Colne Valley (Kali Mountford), the Minister referred on Second Reading to the Government's equalities review and the discrimination law review, with a view to the inclusion of any changes in the promised single equality Act. However, as the Government are aware, waiting for a single equality Act would risk leaving the UK in breach of its obligations under EU law. The directive that I mentioned earlier, which implemented the principle of equal treatment in the access to and supply of goods and services, does not explicitly refer to transpeople or to gender reassignment. However, the minutes of the Council meeting include an explicit note that the directive should be determined in the light of the 1996 European Court of Justice ruling in the P v. S and Cornwall county council case, which I mentioned earlier also. In that case, the European Court of Justice held that the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of sex should be construed to include discrimination on grounds of gender reassignment.
	Goods and services protection for transpeople will therefore be required no later than December 2007, when the directive enters into force. It is very unlikely that a single equality Act will be passed by Parliament and have entered into force in time to meet that obligation. It would, of course, be possible to implement earlier the directive to implement goods and services protection by making regulations under the European Communities Act, which I understand is the Government's intention. That appears, however, to be little different from using the Equality Bill now to create a power for regulation, and I am therefore confused about why the Government are not taking that opportunity, particularly as it would enable some areas not included in the European directive to be addressed. Some areas protected by the goods and services protection provided under the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 fall outside the scope of the EU directive. Education, as a reserved area, is one example, and media representation another. Clearly, in introducing regulations under the European Communities Act, the Government will not be able to extend protection in those areas.

Lynne Jones: I was coming to the point about administrative efficiency and entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. In fact, in many ways, the issues concerning transpeople are perhaps a little easier for the Government to deal with than those concerning lesbians and gay men; we already have gender regulations in relation to employment, which cover many complex areas. I have with me, for example, a guide to the Sex Discrimination (Gender Reassignment) regulations 1999, which covers employment where it is required for employees to share the same accommodation. A lot of issues that might require detailed scrutiny have already been dealt with in those regulations.
	Work is already under way within the Government on regulations to implement the Equality Bill's provision for protection against discrimination in the supply of goods and services on grounds of sexual orientation. Many of the issues raised by discrimination against transpeople are similar to that. For example, religious bodies have similar concerns, and many organisations address the issues on the ground jointly through a lesbian and gay network and bisexual and trans framework.
	Even if the Government introduce regulations, however, goods and services protection will not be comprehensive for transpeople. The means by which the Government propose to implement the EU directive will result in our missing the opportunity to introduce protection in these crucial areas. In addition, it will add unnecessary complexity to the law. It therefore makes administrative sense for the work on discrimination against transpeople to follow on quickly from the work on sexual orientation, rather than being left until the Equality Bill has passed through the House. For those reasons, I hope that the Government will accept new clause 9—I know that they are committed to introducing this protection for transpeople.

Eleanor Laing: New clause 9 should be an essential part of this Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) said most eloquently a few moments ago, there is no logical reason why protection from potential discrimination on grounds of transgender should be treated any differently from protection from potential discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. The Opposition were pleased that the Government were flexible, far-seeing and honest enough to accept the amendments in the other place that have led to the addition to the Bill of protection from potential discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. It is a matter of simple logic and reason to say that the same protection should be afforded to people who have chosen to change gender. We have already passed legislation to make formal the status of transgender and we all appreciate that there is no reason why people should not have that protection.
	I understand why the Minister is likely to argue that the Government do not want to include the new clause at this time: they want to give the matter further consideration as it is part of an ongoing review. We discussed the matter at some length in Committee in a constructive debate. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) proposed the new clause in a thorough and meaningful way and she speaks for many, many Labour Members. She speaks for many Conservative Members, too, and she has the full support of the Opposition Front Bench.

Sandra Gidley: I have little to add to the words of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), who put the case well. Although it is welcome that during the passage of the Bill the Government have extended goods, facilities and services protection on the grounds of sexual orientation, there seems no reason not to extend the provision on the ground of transgender.
	In Committee, the Minister was pressed repeatedly to give an assurance that the directive implementation date of December 2007 would be fully met, yet failed, unfortunately, to produce any such reassurance. I accept the need to get the measure right and iron out the fine details, but as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said, this will be the second missed opportunity to address that aspect of inequality. In 2004, the then Minister said that a review was ongoing and that something was expected within a year. However, almost 18 months later we are no further forward.
	The simple reality is that if we wait for the Act to be passed, we will have missed an opportunity to implement the directive fully and to extend the provision, because, as has already been pointed out, education and the media are not covered. It would be helpful if the Minister could explain the process, give us assurances that the directive will be fully implemented and indicate where we go from here. Only a small group of people may be affected and it is important that we get the provision right, but the Government have had enough time.

Tim Boswell: I, too, signed the new clause moved so ably by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones) and, on the basis of our past association during the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2004, I want to say how much I admired both her constructive approach to those macro-debates and the clear way in which she proposed the new clause. On both, more often than not, I agreed with her—and, indeed, with other Members. This is not fundamentally a party political issue. That is why the Government should catch the tide and eliminate discrimination in one of the few remaining areas that is as yet inadequately covered by our legislative arrangements, and should do so in the way that the hon. Lady put so clearly to the House. She invites us to accept a new clause that is framed to give the maximum possible flexibility of detailed implementation, if there are detailed or technical issues that need further thought and ultimate resolution—as there usually are, in my experience. I am with her on that.
	I regret that owing to other duties, which we sometimes have, I have been a country member of the debates on the Equality Bill. That does not signify any lack of support for it; it merely means that I have not been able to participate in the Committee and listen to the detailed discussions that have taken place. One by-product of that is that coming to the new clause fresh, as it were, without having been a direct participant in the debates in Committee, it seems odd that nothing has been done in this area.
	I have three points to put to the House. First, I disagree slightly with the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, who rightly said—I do not disagree about this—that there have been great advances in our approach to transgendered people. Nevertheless, my experience of people in such a situation is that there is still a real sensitivity and scope, to put it no less strongly, for wide misunderstanding among the general public of the position of transgendered people, not least because they are such a small minority.
	Frankly, I would have known little about it, and might have had less sympathy than I have if one of my constituents, who is very articulate, had not been able to brief me extensively during the passage of the Gender Recognition Act 2004. My constituent has gone through a marriage annulment and, I think, the first civil partnership in the country under the accelerated procedure. I was delighted to congratulate her on that relationship, which I hope will last. She is an excellent person who shows some measure of the quality of people who are transgendered and who are being disregarded and sometimes demeaned by society.
	There was some unpleasant press comment last week about somebody who had sought a reversal operation after an initial operation. That was the old Adam coming out, at least in the press, in people who are still unsympathetic to transgendered people. It seems offensive to have a situation in which the small number of transgendered people—probably a handful in each constituency—feel that they are being singled out at a time when other people's inequalities are being addressed.
	Secondly, I should like the Minister to comment on another issue in her response. I remember well from our exchanges in Committee, when considering the 2004 Act, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak bringing forward some interesting legal opinion and comments—on which we did not have a wholly satisfactory answer from the Government—in the relation to The Hague convention on the operation of private international law.
	Increasingly, there will be situations—I notice the Minister looking a little quizzical—where persons who find themselves translated to the UK, either as temporary visitors or permanent residents, may have private rights attaching to them through their membership of other member states of the European Union. That creates a further anomaly that Ministers may need to consider, quite apart from non-compliance with the European directive in time, which I would have thought they would take seriously, but instead they seem to be taking a casual attitude.
	Thirdly, on discrimination, it seems daft that under the legislation shopkeepers, for example, will no longer be able to refuse services or the supply of goods on the grounds of people's sexual orientation or their religion, or for any other reason, but that the one area where they could continue to refuse would be in relation to transgendered issues. That seems grossly unfair and sends exactly the kind of signal on persecution, or demeaning people, that we should not be sending.
	Having not participated in the debates in Committee, I thought for an awful moment that the Government might, in some strange way—perhaps as the index of the ignorance that is still widely attached to such sensitive issues—have thought to themselves that the provisions on sexual orientation that they were making would, in some sense, cover gender reassignation. Of course, the provisions will not do that because gender reassignation has nothing whatever to do with sexual practices or orientation, nor does it imply anything for them. In that sense, if we are to rake around in moral concerns, it is much less "reprehensible"—I emphasise the inverted commas—to have undergone gender reassignment than to have a particular sexual orientation. I have no objection to the law dealing with those issues either, but I do not understand why the Government are so diffident about this issue.
	Finally, I shall emphasise a point that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak made so eloquently. Her new clause is an entirely facilitative new clause. It provides for an order-making power and not for a precise set of criteria. Therefore, if there is a problem it is possible for Governments to accommodate that. However, to accommodate it by doing nothing at this stage will facilitate the condoning and permission of discrimination in this very narrow area for an indefinite period of a year or two, when that has no justification or merit and should be stopped.

Rob Marris: As ever, my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) said much of what I wanted to say, but I shall briefly repeat some points. I agree about the permissive word, "may", which appears twice in the new clause.
	On whether the Government can reconsider the Bill in the House of Lords if it is amended in the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Minister referred to two other avenues by which such legislative protection could be introduced within the lifetime of this Parliament. It would help if she were to repeat her assurance that the issue will be addressed within the lifetime of this Parliament and that there will be legislative provisions rather than simply a Green Paper.
	The Minister discussed the simplification and codification of anti-discrimination legislation and I share her objective, because the complicated layers of anti-discrimination measures that have built up over the past 40 years bedevil people in enforcing their rights. However, the wording of clause 81, which contains the power to make regulations on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation and which I support, is, with one or two key changes, almost exactly the same as that of new clause 9. If it is too complicated to accept new clause 9 and introduce another layer of anti-discrimination legislation, then that argument can also be used in relation to the provisions on discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation in clause 81.

Meg Munn: Does my hon. Friend agree that new clause 9 does not mean that action will be taken, because it only says, "may"? I have made the precise commitment asked for by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones). The discrimination law review will lead to a single equality Bill that will be passed in the lifetime of this Parliament. That is a manifesto commitment on which all Government Members stood before the election. As much as it is within my power to do so, I will ensure that that manifesto commitment is advanced, which meets the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak.

Eleanor Laing: Does the hon. Lady agree that, although the whole House trusts this particular Minister, who has given us her assurance from the Dispatch Box, Conservative Members do not trust the rest of her Government to follow through what she has said? She cannot necessarily bring about what she says that she wants to bring about, so the time for action on the issue is not in the future but now.

David Lepper: On the point made by the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing), in 2001, I went with two of my constituents to meet the Minister's predecessor in the Home Office, who then dealt with these matters and who gave us an assurance that the Government would introduce a gender Act. From that day forward, we saw the Government take action, irrespective of who the Minister might be. With that precedent in mind, we can accept with confidence the assurance that she has given, even though she may not be in the post—I hope that she is—when the Bill is enacted.

Evan Harris: Of course, everyone welcomes the Minister's assurances as far as they go, but they do not go further than the assurances that she gave in Committee that there would be a single equality Bill, which, presumably, if there is not an early election, will lead to a single equality Act. The point of the new clause is to say that transgender rights in respect of non-discrimination in goods and services should be put through at the same time as those given to people discriminated against on the grounds of religion or sexual orientation. This excellent new clause gives the House that opportunity. That is why the Minister's promise of "tomorrow" is not good enough for many of us.

Evan Harris: I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.
	New clause 10, which is in my name, has the support of Liberal Democrat Members. It deals with guidance in relation to school transport and wider parts of the Bill. It seeks to ensure that the Secretary of State issues guidance setting out how the provisions of part 2 on school transport and wider matters will be implemented. We ask that such guidance as the Government are, I hope, planning to introduce shall have particular regard to the obligations retained for all schools, which are public authorities under the Human Rights Act 1998, to comply with the duty of non-discrimination, irrespective of the exceptions that apply under the Act.
	Clearly, there are exceptions in respect of discrimination law, but there is an overriding provision to respect human rights, especially in relation to non-discrimination—that is not a free-standing provision—in relation to certain other rights covered in the Bill, and that exceptions as implemented have to be for a legitimate purpose and must be proportionate.
	In particular, the new clause draws attention to the duty not to discriminate on the grounds of religion and belief and to carry out public functions with due regard to the Human Rights Act in relation to school transport under various sections of the Bill that deal with the subject. Crucially, the new clause suggests that this part of the Act should not come into force until the guidance under the new clause has been issued. The reason is that there are still major concerns about how the exceptions will be implemented in a way that is fair.
	I want to spend the rest of my short remarks reading from the fourth report of 2005–06 by the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which deals with the Equality Bill. The report makes two important recommendations in this area. The first is in paragraph 41 and says that the Committee did
	"not consider the exceptions under clause 49"
	—it is clause 50 in the version of the Bill that we are considering—
	"to be incompatible on their face with the Convention rights, they may in our assessment fail to prevent discrimination which would be contrary to the Human Rights Act."
	The Committee drew attention to the recommendations made in its previous Report—the 16th report of 2004–05—and went on to say that it hoped
	"that the Bill would provide for statutory guidance to be produced before Part 2 comes into force, making clear that all schools that are public authorities under the Human Rights Act retain obligations to comply with ECHR rights of non-discrimination, irrespective of the exceptions which apply under the Bill. It is essential for any difference in treatment to be objectively justified in order to comply with Article 14 ECHR."
	That is clear and speaks for itself. However, I would like to note a Government amendment that I presume we will reach, if not debate, later that recognises that, in this area, the Government have limited the exception available to faith schools in respect of their ability to discriminate on the ground of religion by subjecting a pupil to any other detriment and, indeed, to expulsion if, for example, the child changes religion, having been admitted to a faith school. I warmly welcome the fact that the Government have considered what was debated civilly in Committee and accepted that that was unnecessary and went too far. The need for guidance still applies and I want to hear how faith schools will apply their exceptions and what the Minister will say in respect of the time scale for guidance, as well as what that should cover.
	On school transport, the Minister will remember that there is a long-standing thorny issue in respect of the appropriate guidance. In Committee, I set out my concern and that of successive Select Committees at the inadequacy of the current guidance, and the fact that that is reinforced, if anything, by the explanatory notes to the Bill, which talk only about denominational schools, as if those parents who have children who they do not wish to go to a denominational school do not have the same rights to help if they need it to go a further distance to a non-denominational school. The Minister knows that that is the nub of the point. I refer again to the fourth report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, paragraph 49 of which states:
	"We are concerned that this current Bill does nothing to dispel, and may reinforce, the apparent misapprehension of some LEAs that it is permissible to discriminate against children of parents with non-religious convictions in the provision of school transport. We reiterate the concerns of the previous Committee, that guidance for LEAs on this matter"—
	it exists, as the Minister knows, in the form of a circular letter on school transport from the then Department for Education, dated 21 January 1994—
	"is inadequate to ensure compliance with the Human Rights Act, and recommend that guidance should be produced under this Bill which should make clear that, as the Government has previously accepted, there is a duty under the Human Rights Act to make equal provision for school transport to support education in accordance with both religious beliefs and non-religious beliefs."
	I stress that the Bill should make equal provision in accordance with both religious and non-religious beliefs.
	So long as the education system involves denominational schools, we Liberal Democrats recognise the need to provide help with school transport for children whose parents have religious beliefs and who wish to send their children to a school further than their nearest one. The Minister will be well aware, however, that the guidance and local education authority practice seem to imply that those who do not have a religious belief do not qualify for the school transport concession.
	I hope that the Minister will repeat what she said in Committee by making it clear that the provision applies to those with, and without, religious beliefs, and that clear guidance will be produced in good time. Perhaps she might even ask the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Education Committee—the latter issued a critical report on the School Transport Bill in respect of these matters—to consider the guidance before it is published, in order to ensure that it is absolutely right. I hope, too, that she will put on the record the need for guidance in both those important areas. That way, the problems that parents without religious beliefs face because of the unfair way in which the school transport system sometimes operates can finally be rectified, after many years of trying to rectify them.

Dominic Grieve: I commend the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) on his ingenuity in tabling this new clause, which touches on an important issue. However, my experience of the problems of home-to-school transport as operated in my county, where there is selective education and, therefore, the need—in a way perhaps similar to that which he described—to do a great deal of juggling to get children to the appropriate school, makes me think that his proposal would cause massive headaches for local education authorities with very little benefit. I am bound to say, moreover, that the Minister would find it difficult to draw up guidelines, and even harder to implement them.
	If, as a result of this legislation, the Human Rights Act is infringed because of the way in which home-to-school transport is offered—and in a way that is unacceptable, even allowing for the exceptions provided for in the Bill—I have no doubt that somebody will take that case to court to get the situation clarified. I hope that the Minister is not encouraged by the hon. Gentleman's proposals, because they would cause intense muddle and land her and the Government with an impossible task.

Evan Harris: I am reassured and hope that the hon. Gentleman agrees that, if a party believes in better regulation, it is preferable to ensure that public authorities are guided on how to avoid multiple judicial reviews and the costs thereof, although they might bring his profession some benefit. Local authorities should not have to rely on constant challenges to law that is unclear and not made clearer by guidance, although I accept that it is a difficult area.
	I understand that another Bill will deal with school transport and, therefore, the Minister feels that it would be more appropriate to update the inadequate guidance under that legislation. People will have to cope for a few more months or years with the existing guidelines and more judicial review may be necessary. However, I thought that it appropriate to allow the Minister to set out on the record her views as communicated to me about future guidance and the problems with current interpretations. I am especially pleased that she had the good grace to recognise that the explanatory notes continue the culture of assuming that transport on grounds of religion applied only to those with religion and could never apply to those without religion. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.
	Motion and clause, by leave, withdrawn.

Keith Vaz: It is regrettable, but what my hon. Friend said about that meeting was important. At least, the then Secretary of State was prepared to meet us and listen to our concerns. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend, because before the Second Reading of the previous Bill she was prepared to listen to our concerns and to engage fully with the chairman of the CRE, Trevor Phillips—as was the then Lord Chancellor, who is still Lord Chancellor, my noble Friend, Lord Falconer. Both those senior members of the Cabinet took on board, to some extent, the concerns we expressed and understood that the proposals would mean a serious change to the way in which black and Asian people could both put their views to Government and be protected.
	Over the last year, sadly, there has been a lack of consultation and communication. I regret the fact that more time was not spent trying to enter appropriate dialogue with the chairman of the CRE and that organisation about the needs of the black and Asian community. I do not agree with everything that Trevor Phillips says: I certainly do not agree with his views on multiculturalism, which is very much alive in places such as Leicester, Wolverhampton and other parts of the country. I am not speaking as a great cheerleader for him, but I respect his integrity and when he tells me openly that there needs to be better consultation with the CRE I take that seriously.
	It is also important that organisations such as the Greater London Authority, and the Mayor of London and his special adviser, Lee Jasper, and the 1990 Trust, with Karen Chouhan, Simon Woolley and others, are all involved in the measure. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington is as old as me and has been a Member for as long as me, so she will remind me if there has ever been a time when so many black and Asian groups and organisations came together to protest at what the Government were proposing—

Keith Vaz: I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is important that we have such focus. I am not saying that I do not agree with a body that involves everybody else and every other strand of equality—it is good that they should be able to share the experience of discrimination—but there is a need for the focus that he describes, which is missing.
	We are at a time in the politics and history of our country when all the political parties talk about the need for better representation. When I first came to the House, I was the first person of Asian origin for more than 50 years. I was joined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington, the late Bernie Grant and Paul Boateng, who is now the high commissioner in South Africa. Since then, other black and Asian Members have been elected. I am sitting next to a very talented one—my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, South (Ms Butler).
	As far as I can remember, Labour party leaders have always talked about the need for more representation in Parliament. Conservative leaders have done the same thing. I heard a passionate speech by the last leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard), who talked about the need to get more representation for women and the ethnic minority population of this country.
	I am pleased that the Opposition now have the hon. Members for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) and for North-West Cambridgeshire (Mr. Vara), both of whom come as elected Members representing the whole of their constituencies, but with the added dimension of being from the ethnic minority community.
	The first thing that we notice about the Front-Bench spokespersons is that they are women. That is the most distinguishable thing that we notice about the difference between, for example, the Minister for Women and Equality and her colleague sitting next to her. That is the most important thing that we notice. There are other issues, but gender is a defining issue, which is why race and gender are so important.
	I pay tribute to the disability lobby—my hon. Friends sitting around me—for the work that it has done and to the gay and lesbian lobby for what it has done in ensuring that it gets to first base. There is no point just talking about representation. Sadly, the Liberal Democrats had one person of Asian origin in Leicester, South, but he is no longer with us in Parliament, so it is, in a sense, not truly representative. I will not go into the other parties, because they are slightly smaller and may think that I am being unfair.
	We all talk about representation. When I first came to the House, that was not a fashionable subject, but now, when the new leader of the Conservative party makes a speech, he talks about more women and more black and Asian people, as do all political leaders—not just in this country, but in other countries throughout Europe.

Keith Vaz: It was meant as a compliment; I am always happy to pay the hon. Lady compliments. However, I do not pay her another compliment as I do not think that she has read my amendments. They do not make race pre-eminent. In terms of representation, we will have a disability commissioner, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington and I, along with other Members, are asking for the Bill to make it clear that a certain number of people of black and Asian origin will be on the commission. At the moment, we do not have any and there is no guarantee that any of the 10 to 15 commissioners will be either women or black or Asian. When the Minister stands up at the Dispatch Box, we will look for a cast-iron guarantee and commitment that those groups will be represented. Only the disability lobby, which has played a very canny game, is guaranteed a commissioner.
	The hon. Lady has me on the equality argument. The black and Asian community are not against the creation of a new body provided that there is, as her colleagues have said, sufficient time, attention and focus on these issues. If we are creating an organisation—some would say a tower of Babel—with so many strands sitting round the table that are, of course, united by the common agenda of equality, there must be adequate representation.

Keith Vaz: If an organisation is not working or if it can be improved, let us improve it. I have my own story about the CRE. When I first came to Britain, my mother went to the CRE to ask for help in a discrimination case that she had. She was then, I think, the only person of Asian origin teaching in the London borough of Richmond and we could not understand why she could never obtain promotion. We went to the CRE—I think I was about 11—and asked it for help. Although it did not help my mother, it did not put me off the concept of the need for an organisation that provides help.
	A lot of other organisations have claims of racial discrimination made against them, and I concede the point that we need a new organisation provided that it makes for better representation. The representation point is of paramount consideration for the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrat party, which is always banging on about representation. I have just heard a speech from the president of the Liberal Democrats, and I name him even though I have not given him notice that I would. I have just rushed out of the speech to take part in the debate, but his speech was all about representation. With Muslim people sitting in front of him, he called for more Muslim Members of Parliament from the Liberal Democrat party. Such words are cheap if one goes on to a platform to say that we want more and then one takes away the very mechanism by which we get more.

Keith Vaz: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am not familiar with the life of Lord Halifax, but he makes the good point that representation is crucially important. When the Minister responds to this first point, I ask her to be absolutely unequivocal. She should not use the words "I hope", "I wish", or "there should" because we have heard them before. We are looking for the words "there must be" if we are not to press the matter to a Division.

David Winnick: Does my hon. Friend accept that much of the argument against what he is putting forward was put far more strongly 40 years ago when it was argued that there are other forms of discrimination, which undoubtedly existed and which remain, and therefore there was no reason why preference should be given to black and Asians? We have made considerable progress—I do not underestimate that progress when I look at those who occupy the Government Benches and those elsewhere in the country—but the form of discrimination against those who happen not to have a white skin remains. Hence there is undoubtedly an argument—less so now, but the argument of 40 years ago remains—for there to be a committee within the new body that is proposed along the lines that my hon. Friend is suggesting and proposing. I will be delighted, as I am sure that he will be, when that is no longer necessary.

Keith Vaz: We have had Clement Attlee and Lord Halifax. So goodness knows who we are going to hear from next. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that quote, and I shall use it in my next speech.
	The issue of policy and decision making will be important. The proposed body will be charged with making policy. The point of having a race committee is that black and Asian people, it is to be hoped, will be able to decide on policy that affects black and Asian people. There will be a voice for them and somewhere for them to go. This is not happening at present.
	I say to my hon. Friend the Minister—this is not meant personally to her because she has been a Minister for only the past year—to quote Mario Puzo, that to criticise people is not the business of politics. It is not personal. I think that we have failed in terms of the equality agenda after eight years. I expected more from our Government than we have given. We need to do more. We need more than good speeches about more black people here and more Asian people there. We need to have good laws, which I hope that we shall introduce as part of the measure that is before us. In addition, we must have bodies that will be able to allow the communities to be able to represent themselves. I am sorry that that is not happening. That is lamentable.
	Only this morning, there is an article in The Times about the number of police officers who are not only joining the police service but leaving it. The police service had 4,629 ethnic minority police officers in 2004. That was an 18 per cent. increase on the previous year. Hooray. That is a fantastic record. However, 17.8 per cent. of black and Asian recruits in 2004 resigned or were dismissed within six months of starting their jobs, compared with 7.7 per cent. of white officers.
	Last year, 12.6 per cent. of ethnic minority recruits dropped out of the service within six months compared with 7.6 per cent. of white officers, and the figures continue. In that public service—one that is constantly monitored—to see that sort of reaction and to hear stories of racism against police officers makes me wonder what we have been doing over the past generation. We certainly should have done much more. These are lamentable figures for any Government. For me, someone who is passionately committed to the Labour Government—when I told my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. Sarwar) that I was tabling the amendment, he said, "Why are you doing so? You are part of the payroll vote even though you are not on the payroll"—so loyal am I to the Government. That worries me intensely. I do not mean that as a slight to the Minister because she is not yet on the payroll vote, even though she will be voting for the Bill's passage through the House.
	I think that we have let people down. We have lost the plot on equality. We have only reacted since 7 July last year, because we discovered that some people who are trying to destroy the good race relations that we enjoy in this country do not come from Lebanon, have not been trained in Syria, and do not have Iranian connections. They were born and bred in Leeds. That is the challenge for us—which body will take up that mantle and try to deal with that fundamental issue? Will it be the new commission for integration and citizenship? Will it be part of the Phillips review? Will it be the Commission for Racial Equality, or what has been left of it in the past 18 months? Will it be Lee Jasper and the Greater London Assembly? Will it be Simon Woolley and the 1990 Trust, or Operation Black Vote? Who will accept that mantle? The hon. Member for Daventry talked about Lord Halifax dividing and ruling, but if we divide the community in that way and do not give its members a focus it is a recipe for disaster.

Michael Wills: I have been listening very carefully to the case that my hon. Friend is making. While I understand the Government's approach—and I certainly think that our record on equality is rather better than he suggested—I was struck by what appears to be consensus among all black and Asian organisations on the amendment. It is important that the Government always listen, and I personally hope that they will reconsider their attitude to the amendment in the light of our discussions. I should be grateful, however, if my hon. Friend would spell out in a little more detail the consequences if the amendment fails.

Keith Vaz: I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman is making, and I accept that he is sincere. The fact is, however, we need proper representation in the Bill. The issue of portfolios is applicable now. The CRE has a number of commissioners, some of whom deal specifically with, for example, the Muslim community. The portfolio issue is a secondary consideration, but the hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to paragraph 2 of schedule 1, because the issue of representation is the key point.
	The hon. Gentleman was kind enough to say that I have spoken eloquently, but I think that I have spoken for too long. [Hon. Members: "No."] I want to allow my hon. Friends the opportunity to speak. We rarely debate equality in this House, because the Opposition never want to debate it in their time. The hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) disagrees, but when was the last time that she used one of her Opposition days to discuss equality? The hon. Member for North Southwark and Bermondsey (Simon Hughes) has told us all about his commitment to equality, but I cannot remember when the Liberal Democrats provided last time to debate it.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) has just returned from Eid celebrations to attend this debate, which must have been a difficult choice.
	This is an opportunity to send a powerful message to the black and Asian community, and I hope that the Minister takes it and does not leave me and my hon. Friends in the position of having to call a Division against our own Government.

Eleanor Laing: The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) has made an important and eloquent speech. He mentioned that the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) has attended Eid celebrations, which is what my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who is usually here on the Front Bench, is doing. We cannot all attend Eid celebrations, which are important, but I am sure that all hon. Members support them.
	I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Leicester, East. When I challenged him on one point, he answered another point, but I still disagree with him on the first point, which amendment No. 43 addresses. Given that we are discussing equality, it is strange that the Bill gives pre-eminence to matters concerning race, religion or belief. We discussed that point at length in Committee, where I argued that it is illogical to include the word "particular" in clause 10(4), because it is not right that particular attention should be paid to one of the strands of equality. However, I will not press that point, because other issues are far more important and I do not feel strongly about it. When we made that point in Committee, the Minister gave a reasonable explanation why the word "particular" should remain. I accepted her argument then, and, being consistent, I am sure that she will advance it again today, in which case I shall probably accept it once more.
	The hon. Member for Leicester, East has made some important points. In Committee, I moved amendment No. 52, which suggested that the commission should consist of:
	"(d) at least one female Commissioner,
	(e) at least one Commissioner who represents an ethnic minority,
	(f) at least one Commissioner who at the time of appointment is aged over 65 years, and
	(g) at least one Commissioner who is either gay, lesbian or transgender.'."—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 29 November 2005; c. 6.]
	To that extent, I agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, East.
	In Committee, my concern, which I still harbour, was that we should be prescriptive on Report, because law is better if it is not vague, but precise. My amendment in Committee, which is similar to the general points made by the hon. Member for Leicester, East this afternoon, would have allowed Parliament to prescribe some of the qualifications for some of the commissioners. It is important that at least one commissioner is female and that at least one commissioner can discuss issues around age from their own experience. I am not sure whether all hon. Members agree that "aged over 65 years" is a qualification, and if others think that it should be 70, 75 or even older, I would not argue, because the point is sensitive.
	In principle, it is important that the commission has members who know about discrimination from their own experience rather than from a second-hand, academic or professional understanding. A reasonable proportion of the commissioners should have an understanding based on their own experience, which is different from an understanding derived from academic study or professional experience. I therefore agree with the general principles behind what the hon. Member for Leicester, East has said this afternoon.

Tim Boswell: It might assist my hon. Friend if I were to tell her my own view, without anticipating any speech that I may shortly be called to make. Is it not absolutely crucial that we have a robust and entirely convincing response from the Minister, because some of us will be listening to the debate and deciding what to do in the light of that?

Rob Marris: I too am a lawyer, although perhaps not as cautious as the hon. Lady. I see no Conservative amendment relating to the disability committee, which is covered in part 5 of schedule 1. The wording in that part of the schedule is on all fours with amendment No. 9, except that one would have to take out the word, "disability", and insert the word, "race". As the hon. Lady has not tabled an amendment to part 5 of schedule 1, I presume that she accepts the disability committee, so why is she being so cautious about the wording—and perhaps even the concept, although I am not so sure about that—of the amendment?

Eleanor Laing: There is no point in the hon. Gentleman continuing to ask me questions, because I am not the Minister.
	I want to move on, because we have taken up a lot of time on this and there are many equally important matters still to be debated. Amendment No. 42, which stands in my name and those of my hon. Friends, relates to the way in which the new commission will be held accountable for the spending of taxpayers' money. I brought that up many times on Second Reading and in Committee. The Minister and the hon. Member for Romsey are smiling because they have heard me make this argument so often, but I make no apology for repeating it.
	The cost of the new commission and the work that it undertakes will be very much greater than the cost of the three bodies that it replaces. I am very worried about that. Of course, I accept that as we are widening the scope of the work done by the existing three bodies, excellent as they are, the new operation will cost more than the current one. That is correct. However, there is a difference between more and an enormous amount more—indeed, multiplied several times over. The Minister has given me many answers on that point in our previous deliberations but none has satisfied me.

Meg Munn: I am puzzled by the hon. Lady's view. She says that the figure has been multiplied many times. The budget for the new commission is £70 million whereas that for the existing Commissions is £48 million. By anyone's calculation, the figure is not multiplied many times.

Eleanor Laing: The Minister is right. The new commission will cost twice as much. We had that argument previously. [Interruption.] I know that 48 times two does not equal 70 but if any hon. Member can give me an example of a Labour Government's projection and the relevant figures at the end of the year for which it was done coming in below that same projection, I shall withdraw my comments. If the Government estimate £70 million, the commission will cost more than that.
	The current £48 million is probably money well spent and I do not therefore argue for a cut in spending on such an important matter. My hon. Friends and I always argue for spending the smallest possible amount of taxpayers' money, yet if the Government plan to put three bodies under one administrative roof, there must be economies of scale and the current budget of £48 million should be reduced. Nevertheless, given that the new commission can rightly cover six strands of work instead of three, that budget will clearly increase. However, if one decreases and then increases a budget, one should not predict spending twice the amount of taxpayers' money.

Eleanor Laing: At present, discrimination is tackled by £48 million a year and it is well done. I pay tribute to the three bodies that currently carry out the excellent work. They have worked hard to inform hon. Members about the issues that we are debating and they should be congratulated on their hard work on our proceedings, as should the bodies that represent the other strands of inequality that will come under the new commission for equality and human rights.
	The current work represents taxpayers' money well spent but I am worried. I wager that, when we examine the new body's accounts at the end of its first financial year, it will have cost more than the £70 million predicted by the Minister. I fear that the new body will cost more than twice as much as the current bodies. That is worrying because every pound spent on the commission is a pound of taxpayers' money not spent on health, education or some other matter.
	It is our duty, as a House of Commons, to be the guardian of taxpayers' money. Whatever we want to do and however good the intentions of the legislation that we wish to pass—I have said time and again that the Bill's intention is good and we thoroughly support it—if it costs too much, is over-bureaucratic and puts too many burdens on business, thus costing more indirectly to the economy, it will undo some of its good work. It falls to me as Opposition spokesman to make this point because the Government will never make it: Labour Governments always spend more taxpayers' money than they intend because they do not have the regard that they should for the economy.

John McDonnell: I want to speak about the amendments that I tabled, but I begin my associating myself with those tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz).
	As the Library research paper emphasised, when the Bill was first introduced it and the intentions behind it gained a breadth of support that we had not witnessed for several years. Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty said:
	"This Bill is a beacon of hope for many of us and I hope that the Government will put real political will behind it."
	Other supporters include the Muslim Council of Britain, Ben Summerskill—the chief executive of Stonewall—the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress. It would be regrettable to waste all that good will on the issue of representation among the commissioners. I hope that the Minister will make a strong statement that the issues raised in the debate will be tackled properly and that we shall hear a firm and concrete commitment from the Government that the new body will be adequately representative.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East talked about the definition of black and ethnic minorities. I am the chair of the all-party group on the Irish community in Britain, and I should like to point out that, among all the other definitions of ethnic minorities, we need to recognise that the largest ethnic minority in this country are the Irish, who have suffered discrimination at the hands of the various institutions of this country over the generations.
	I have tabled amendments Nos. 23, 24 and 20. If we are to set up a new organisation from the merger of existing organisations, it is important that we help to maintain the morale of the staff of those organisations who transfer to the new one, particularly those who have built up expertise in these fields as a result of working for the existing organisations over the years. A number of members of staff have expressed their concern to the all-party trade union group representing the Public and Commercial Services Union, of which I am the chair. They are worried about continuity of service and the application of TUPE—the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981.
	Amendment No. 23 addresses the issue of continuity of service by ensuring that all the staff from the former commissions transferring across to the new commission will be deemed to have continuity of service for the purposes of the civil service compensation scheme. This means that if, for example, a member of staff were to be compensated for redundancy, their service on the existing organisation would be taken into account.
	Many hon. Members will think that that would naturally be the case, but I have raised the issue because of the recent experience of staff at the Learning and Skills Council, which is implementing massive redundancies. Many of its staff had previously transferred from the training and enterprise councils, and they thought that that service would be regarded as part of the continuity of their employment. However, many of the staff who are facing redundancy have had their entitlement calculated only from the creation of the LSC. Their service with the TECs has not been taken into account, and their supposed continuity of service has not been recognised. It would therefore be helpful if the Minister could place on the record the assurance that, for the purpose of the civil service compensation scheme, all the staff transferring from the three existing commissions will be regarded as having continuity of service.

Roger Berry: It is a pleasure to rise to speak to the amendments that stand in my name and to welcome the Bill, which is part of the significant progress being made by the Government towards the creation of the kind of society where people can participate equally without the fear of discrimination or prejudice.
	I am delighted that we have a consensus, as we tend to nowadays on equality issues—it is marvellous—on most of the key issues in relation to establishing a new commission for equality and human rights. A mere eight or nine years ago, the Conservatives were fighting tooth and nail against the setting up the Disability Rights Commission and were arguing on the quiet to get rid of the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Commission for Racial Equality. In fairness, none of the Conservative Members present tonight was involved, but I am convinced that we would not have the Bill were it not for the fact that we have a Labour Government.
	I have, however, tabled amendments, for the obvious reason that I believe the Bill can be improved. I wish to support amendments Nos. 16 to 18, which stand in my name and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). I have reciprocated by attaching my name to all his amendments and he made powerful arguments in their support.
	The amendments are essentially those that were tabled on Report in the other place by my noble Friend Lord Ouseley. The purpose of amendment No. 18 is to address representation and ensure that the commission represents the society that it will serve.
	The Bill is a curious one in some respects, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris) pointed out—indeed, he stole much of my speech. Schedule 1 contains a specific commitment that at least one commissioner will be, or will have been, a disabled person. I confess that I had considered asking for two or more disabled commissioners, but to my astonishment I discovered that we are still in the same position as with the first draft of the Bill: when it comes to the other equality strands, there is no provision whatever for commissioners with particular characteristics.
	My main concern over the years has been with the disability strand and I am delighted that the Government have accepted the principle that there should be at least one disabled person as a commissioner. A disabled person will bring experience to the commission that the commission should own and that experience is directly relevant and important enough to the work of the commission that we should legislate in that way. I cannot understand why the principle has been abandoned when it comes to gender or race.

Roger Berry: I was speaking to amendment No. 18 and was going to come to No. 16 in a moment. Amendment No. 18 is acceptable and should be supported because it would cater for a minimum provision of women and members of black and other ethnic minority communities as commissioners. It is acceptable because this House apparently, and quite rightly, is going to accept that at least one disabled person should serve as a commissioner. I do not understand why the Government have said that, as a matter of principle, there should be representation for disabled people on the commission but that that should not apply to women or members of black or other ethnic minority groups. That is why the amendment proposes that not fewer than half the commissioners should be women and that not fewer than one quarter should be from black and other ethnic minority backgrounds. That is the same aim as that of amendment No. 10, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East. It is not tokenism, nor is it denying the obvious, which is that people should be appointed on merit. It is simply an attempt to ensure that all communities are fairly represented as commissioners.
	The Government's arguments against the amendments have tended to be of the following kind: that it is possible under the Bill that we could have 10 white men, but as my very good friend the Minister rightly says, that could not possibly happen. No one believes that the Government would be so foolish as even to think of doing that. I genuinely believe that it has never crossed anyone's mind to have 10 white men serving on the commission, but nothing in the Bill would prevent a Government from appointing commissioners in that way.
	The Government have said that the need for flexibility in appointments requires that no such restrictions be imposed, but apparently, there can be restrictions in respect of appointing at least one disabled person. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm that it would not be that difficult to make first-rate commission appointments on merit, with at least half the commissioners being women and at least one quarter representing black or other ethnic minority groups. Doing so would be no more difficult than appointing, on merit, a disabled person.
	Other Members referred to the third Government argument, which is that to appoint commissioners in such a way would reflect silo thinking. I understand the point and entirely oppose silo thinking in the commission's work. When the commission was proposed, I supported the idea of a single commission for equality and human rights, precisely because I oppose silo thinking. There were those in the disability movement, as in other equality strands, who had grave reservations about that idea. I had practical reservations about the manner in which the commission might be set up but, in principle, I have always supported a single commission, precisely because I oppose the silo mentality.
	A friend of mine, Professor Paul Steven Miller, was one of President Clinton's commissioners at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington DC. He is a disabled lawyer and he convinced me—as if I needed convincing—that, when people come through the door, the cause of discrimination may be not abundantly clear. People could be discriminated against on the grounds of race and gender, race and disability, disability and orientation, or goodness knows however many different circumstances. It is right to have a single commission to provide a service to people who allege discrimination; that is the only idea that makes sense. People being referred from one commission to another would not promote equality or human rights.
	I support the commission because I am against a silo mentality. I want people to feel assured that allegations of discrimination will be tackled holistically—another term used by Members today. Having said that, I do not believe that a representative commission is a threat, but rather that it is an opportunity. It would strengthen the expertise of the commissioners. Having commissioners who are disabled, or who have experienced discrimination as women or on the ground of race, would strengthen the commission, not weaken it.

Rob Marris: Where do you start?

Roger Berry: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend.
	Creating a more representative commission would strengthen the expertise available to the commissioners and give confidence to stakeholders, as several Members have pointed out. It is true that those from black and other ethnic minority groups in particular—along, of course, with the Commission for Racial Equality and the Greater London authority—have made a strong case for such representation, but so have others.
	It is because I favour making the commission more representative that I also support the creation of a race committee. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West said, it is self-evident that amendment No. 9, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, replicates part 5 of schedule 1, which deals with the establishment of the disability committee. But if the Bill is to provide for a disability committee, why should it not provide for a race committee? Notwithstanding the question of consistency, it makes very good sense to create such a committee. Interestingly, at the outset of these discussions, the Disability Rights Commission suggested that, for a period, it might be necessary for each of the equality strands to have a committee, in order to pursue their interests.
	I repeat that the last thing that I want is for the commission to have a silo mentality—heaven forbid—but I do want it to have expertise; after all, that is how government is run. Any organisation that wants to use expertise efficiently might well find it useful to set up the odd committee in which such expertise can be found.
	I turn to amendments Nos. 16 and 17 and the point that the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) raised. Paragraph 2 of schedule 1 proposes that the Secretary of State shall appoint an individual only if the person concerned
	"has experience or knowledge relating to a relevant matter, or . . . is suitable for appointment for some other special reason".
	I should have thought that that was stating the blindingly obvious. Those requirements are self-evident and I cannot imagine anyone seriously considering appointing a commissioner who did not have experience or knowledge that was relevant to the job. The provision should be tightened, which is why amendment No. 16 would
	"ensure that no fewer than one half of the Commissioners have personal or direct experience of one or more of the causes of discrimination and prejudice".
	I do not say that people who have not suffered discrimination can have no understanding of a society in which discrimination takes place, but those who have been victims of discrimination or prejudice have something very special to bring to the table. That is the reason for the amendment.
	When the amendments were discussed in the other place, the Lord Chancellor said:
	"I very much hope that, when the commission is appointed, its make-up will broadly reflect the balance that these amendments seek to secure".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2005; Vol. 674, c. 753.]
	I am sure that the Government do want that, but he talked about "hoping" that the commission would do that. We do not need to rely on hope because we can, in fact, legislate. The Government are not relying on hope on disability—they are legislating.
	I welcome the fact that the objective behind the amendments tabled by my colleagues and me is widely shared by the Government. It is only through primary legislation, however, that we can ensure that the commission is representative, rather than just hoping it might be. The Government have accepted that principle on the face of the Bill in relation to the appointment of a commissioner who is disabled and of the disability committee.
	Having a representative commission from the outset is essential if we are to have the expertise to do the job and if the commission is to win the trust of the communities whose members it will serve. In particular, I mean the communities who are most commonly victims of discrimination and prejudice. The Government clearly agree with that view. Those requirements should therefore be in the Bill. If they will not accept the amendments, they will, in my humble opinion, have to come up with some absolutely cast iron guarantees that the commissioners and the structure of the commission will indeed be along the lines that most right hon. and hon. Members have argued for.

Tim Boswell: It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), who has considerable expertise in the field of disability and with whom through my own involvement in that area I have collaborated constructively in the past. He made some trenchant points about not thinking within a silo mentality. From my own experience, I came at the issue with an interest in disability and found myself driven by the fact of discrimination to take a lively interest, too, in issues of gender equality and race equality. In the end, they become indivisible, which is the compelling case for having a single commission.
	I like, as it were, to play mental games when anticipating ministerial arguments, and I have been trying hard to do so on why there should be any justification for the special treatment of disability in the Bill. One could say it is because Bert Massey and the Disability Rights Commission were not very happy about it, and that is certainly true. That may well be reflected in the Bill, but in trying to produce acceptable and defensible arguments for the Minister—I offer them to her for nothing—there seem to me to be two.
	First, the Disability Rights Commission is relatively new in comparison with the other equality bodies. Secondly, the nature of the discrimination concerned is, as it were, more by analogue than by digital: whereas one is either a racist or one is not, and one is either a feminist or one is not, the test in relation to disability is whether reasonable adjustments are being made, which is a much more opaque area.
	Having said which, I have absolutely convinced myself that those arguments are implausible. To return to the beginning of the Report stage, it seems that the Government have already conceded the primary point, as they did on the first group of amendments about the difference between sexual orientation and transgendered people. Having provided to legislate for one group, it seemed difficult to many of us not to legislate for the second. Having provided to legislate for disability, it equally seems difficult not to argue the case for legislating on race. I was particularly attracted by amendment No. 16, at least in that it provides an instruction to Ministers on good practice, which they should adopt.
	As the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) developed his case with his characteristic charm and eloquence, I found myself increasingly warming towards it. As I went through the nature of the argument in the same way that I did on the amendment spoken to by the hon. Member for Kingswood, I anticipated all the ministerial problems. I am sure that the Minister has a great big brief in front of her—I speak from experience—that bears the six-letter word "resist". It will say that, first, we need flexibility, and, secondly, it would be insulting to type people by their particular cases. How can we know that people are not multifunctional in two or three areas of disability? Why should we seem to single out one group when we cannot, for example, appoint a transgendered person because we would run out of places on any reasonably sized commission? Would that not send the wrong signals? And Ministers have the right intentions anyway. I think that the Minister has to show the House tonight that the Government do have the right intention, which is to produce a multifunctional and effective commission that is seen to represent the interests engaged in this important area.
	The one point on which I perhaps did not quite agree with the hon. Member for Leicester, East—I think I did not; it may have been misinterpretable—was his remark that there are good race relations in this country. I think that that is the case, but we have an obligation to maintain perpetual vigilance, at which I see him nodding. One does not have to agree with every last word that Trevor Phillips said in his rather controversial speech at least to be aware that things can go wrong. Indeed, in other countries with rather less of a multiculturalist tradition than ours—France, in particular—they have gone wrong. We should be conscious that at the very moment when we think things are all right, they may be formally so but that does not necessarily mean that there is deep engagement. That will take more than one generation to achieve and will vary very much with levels of education and experience in particular areas. I am conscious of what one of my colleagues once described as the kind of polite apartheid that can apply in some cities: different ethnic groups may stand off without actually falling out with one another but find little affinity or involvement. That is not a happy position, although those are perhaps wider issues that we cannot develop in full tonight.
	Implicit in what the hon. Member for Leicester, East said was the idea that the Bill is all about something real—a significant economic imbalance. If one considers the proportion of people from ethnic minorities who are unemployed, the rates of pay that those in work receive and the general economic position, the figures are still depressingly unpositive. There is a problem and we cannot fail to start by acknowledging that.
	If that is the economic side, the other side is representation or stakeholder involvement, which is what the amendment and the debate are about. If people do not feel that they have a stake in this country and that their interests are being taken seriously and represented, we should be ashamed of ourselves in this place, but whether we are or are not, we are building up problems for the future. We have to involve all our people, and I did not need the recent change in the leadership of my party to reinforce my views in support of that. If one is a one-nation politician of any party, one is about bringing people together and recognising that they have views, aspirations, fears and experiences that need to be taken extremely seriously.
	In relating all that to the substance of the debate, it seemed to me that I should like three sets of assurances from the Minister. The first is on the wider work of the Commission for Racial Equality. It would be useful if she could put on the record how some of the other functions—what I might call the positive functions—of the CRE are to be discharged, particularly its work on local racial integration. Many of us feel strongly that that should continue, and be safeguarded, and is—in a sense, although I do not wish to give a hierarchy—more important than the mere legal enforcement of equality. Both are extremely important, but the positive approach, which says, "Let's encourage good practice and good race relations", is an important part. Some of that activity may transfer to the new commission, but it would be useful if the Minister could confirm that.
	The second issue is economic imbalance and I hope that Trevor Phillips's commission will carry out some studies on that. My party will not prescribe a magic solution that would somehow produce economic equality overnight, but no one should be comfortable unless we are working towards that.
	The third issue is the institutional and operational matters that are under debate in the Bill. The hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) was right to mention staff issues because, in my sad experience, they are not always well handled by Governments, of whichever party, in legislation. The issue of participation is central and whether we have a separate race committee or another structure—the Minister may come up with a good argument on that—the institution will not work unless people feel comfortable with it and that it has some relevance to them.
	The hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) mentioned India, and I should point out that Lord Irwin, as he then was, was rather a rather liberal—if it is not derogatory to use the word these days—Viceroy, but he was wrestling with a commission that was a non-starter because it was all Brits and no Indians. That does not work, because any structure needs to be acceptable to the various communities involved.

Diane Abbott: Of course, in an ideal world colour, gender, sexuality or physical challenges would not matter, but we are not in an ideal world and all my experience of these issues, which goes back a few years before the hon. Gentleman entered the House, tells me that unless we debate representation, raise the issue and put in place the structures and the law to ensure it—as we are calling for in this case—we will find that the majority of people best placed to empathise with the issues are somehow, magically, always white males. Time after time, that is the practical outcome.
	I am old enough to remember when the CRE was set up and am the first to acknowledge that although it has had some excellent leaders it has not been as effective in recent years as it might have been. I am the first to acknowledge that the CRE has faced challenges as an institution, but I remind the House that when it was set up in 1977 it embodied the best and most hopeful aspirations of our society for racial equality. In those early years, it attracted the best and brightest members of our black and Asian community. The House should also remember that the CRE is not just a London organisation; in community after community, in town after town, local racial equality committees, often with only one or two paid staff, do incredible work 18 hours a day, as beacons, fighting for equality in their community.
	As this debate may be our last chance to say anything about the CRE before it goes in two years' time, we should not just look at where it has failed and where we might disagree with one of its chairs on a particular issue. We should look at the hopes and aspirations that it embodied and at the incredibly brave work of hundreds upon hundreds of individuals for the national body or for their community, long before race and equality were fashionable or acceptable. It would be wrong for the House not to acknowledge the contribution that the CRE has made to ensuring that we do not see in our society what the French saw last summer—community after community in flames.
	I entirely concede that the CRE may not have achieved all that we hoped. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East, I do not agree with what Trevor Phillips said about multiculturalism, but we should not forget what the CRE represented, the hopes it embodied and the real achievements of individuals associated with it.

Diane Abbott: No, I must make progress.
	Of course, I support bringing all the equality strands into one commission, but my fear is that unless we get the legislation and the structures right, the commission will embody what I have seen so often, whether at local authority, non-governmental organisation or Government level: lowest common denominator equality, which is no good for anyone, although it provides a laugh for some people who are hostile to the whole notion of equalities in principle. Lowest common denominator equality sells every equality strand short. Sadly, it is my experience that if race is merged with other equalities issues, without sufficient thought and care about the structures, race inevitably falls to the bottom of the agenda. That is why, when the Government set up a working party to look into the matter, out of 28 people there were only three visible minorities. When we say that we want not just assurances but legislation and structures, we are not looking in the crystal ball, we are reading the book.
	It astonishes me that two years after my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East and I took a group of concerned parliamentarians to see Ministers, the Government have not moved on the issue. As I said earlier, I am not arguing for a hierarchy of equalities, but that, based on my experience of working on equality for 30 years not just as an MP, but in my trade union and my community, all the equality strands have a distinct character. On employment, for example, the problem for most white women is how to get through the glass ceiling: the problem for most black people is how to get through the door. Of course, the commission must broker a collective view at the end of the day, but unless there are people on it who understand the distinctions between the challenges faced by disabled persons, by people whose problem is their colour or by women, we shall end up with lowest common denominator solutions that pay lip service to, but do not address the difficult issues.
	Many issues concerned with race are difficult. This society still finds it difficult to face many of the realities about race. When I started raising the issue of the underachievement of black boys, white people asked me whether it was not a little embarrassing to talk about that. I was not afraid to talk about it, because the issue is real and it needs to be addressed. However, if we have a commission with no structures and without the right legislation, the temptation will be to duck the difficult issues; there will be lowest common denominator equalities.
	Ministers talk about empathy and hoping. No individual in the black community is more committed to institutions, to the state and to making things work through the political process than I am, but there are persons out there in our communities who are really not that interested in middle-class white men empathising with their situation; they want representation and stakeholder involvement. We have heard about Lord Halifax and the end of the Indian empire, but I have to tell the House that the days of white men empathising with the situation of other people have long been left behind. I do not say that because we are not all people and because everybody cannot represent everybody else, but because institutions are more than the sum of their parts. They are about what they say—the message they give to a society. So when Ministers tell me that they hope that the commission will not be all white men, what do they mean? They are Ministers. If they want to ensure that the commission has proper representation, the remedy is in their hands. They can put those matters on the face of the Bill.
	I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East that the Government have made progress on inequalities. This society has made progress on equalities in the 20 years since I have been a Member of Parliament; indeed, sometimes, society makes progress ahead of politicians and they have to scrabble to keep up. We have made progress, but if the commission goes ahead with the Government resolutely refusing to listen to the united voice of black and Asian communities and the Bill goes forward without a race committee, without the proper structural arrangements, we shall set the race issue in this country back many years.
	Ministers say to me, "Diane, why are you going on about race? The issues are different now, it's all about human rights." All the issues are serious, but if they do not have mind to the race issue, it will have a way of forcing itself back on to the political agenda. Rather than the House having to create structures and produce law to deal with a situation where black, Asian or minority persons feel disfranchised and marginalised, why do not we this evening ensure that we have the thought-out structures and arrangements that will reassure black and Asian people that just as representation mattered to the House of Commons 20 years ago, it matters for the new equality commission? I could not let the debate go past without speaking on this matter, because representation is important.
	Of course, I am here to represent everybody and I try to balance every view in my constituency and work for every community. However, the people, black and white, who worked so hard to elect me in 1987 would have been disappointed if, at a point when the Government are being completely obdurate and it seems as though there is no hope, I had not stood up and spoken to this issue. That is what representation is about. It is not about advancing the issue when it is easy, or when a Member is in a majority, or when the Government are on their side; it is about advancing the issue because it has to be done—because that is where we come from and where we learn and, in the end, we know that we are answerable.

Harry Cohen: It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who is my good friend and parliamentary colleague. I fully agree with her. I did not want to interrupt her passionate flow in the debate. She talked about the local race equality councils, but from my experience as a Member of Parliament since 1983, and as a local councillor for 11 years before that, I can say that the local race equality councils stopped serious trouble in parts of our country. I note that there is no guarantee of any local institution being set up, following from this measure.
	My amendment—No. 26—is about setting up a London committee, but before I talk about that, I want to praise my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) for suggesting that there should be a race committee. I fully support the eloquent and strong case that he made. Indeed, I have added my name to the amendments that he tabled in that regard.
	I should also like to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), who talked about the need for the commissioners to have direct experience of the discrimination strands that they are suppose to represent—that was Lord Ouseley's amendment in the other place. I referred to that on Second Reading, during an intervention, and I still do not think that that has been properly addressed. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said, the Minister and the Government are hoping that it will come about. I should prefer that to be included in the Bill.
	I was not here when my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) talked about TUPE rights, which are important, and trade union rights. I saw a little bit of data from the last honours list that shows that, whereas scores of businessman got gongs, only three trade unionists did so—and two of them were from trade unions that are not in the TUC. There is a case to be made for trade union representation on organisations such as the CEHR. It is sad that a Labour Back Bencher has to argue for that.
	I return to amendment No. 26 and the case for a London committee. I am arguing the case put forward, for example, by the Mayor of London, who said in his representations to hon. Members:
	"The Equality Bill does not recognise the unique devolution arrangements in London. The Bill should establish a London Committee, in line with the decision-making committees proposed for Scotland and Wales."
	Just as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood has said, if this is okay in relation to a disability commissioner, if it is okay to have a race commissioner and a race committee and if that is all right for Scotland and Wales, it should be all right for London as well. London has more extensive discrimination problems, but also more positive experiences than the other regions on how to bring about solutions to the problems that we face in the discrimination streams. There is a big case for the London committee. That London context provides unique lessons, opportunities and challenges with regard to equality and diversity. London is one of the most diverse cities in the world and is certainly unique in the UK context.

David Winnick: I am not a London Member, but I am sympathetic to what my hon. Friend is saying. I introduce what is not, I hope, considered a controversial point among one or two colleagues. Would not race relations in our capital be strengthened if a visiting cleric with notorious racist views on Jews or homosexuals was not embraced, whether by the Mayor of London, or anyone else? If we are against racism, surely we are against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism, presumably.

Dawn Butler: As my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) said, who will carry the mantle of race equalities? The establishments that he named—the National Assembly Against Racism, Operation Black Vote and the Greater London Assembly—are based in London and have regular meetings with key stakeholders. If this strand is to be effective, it must have strong, cohesive links in London.

Rob Marris: I am now slightly more confused because I though that the hon. Lady was putting a price on that earlier when she said that she thought that the cost would be more than £96 million—more than twice the £48 million. I take the point that she was not saying that that cost would not be justified.
	I suggested earlier to the hon. Lady that there was a contradiction because she and her party appeared to be sitting on the fence on amendment No. 9, which was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz). I asked her whether she would support a race committee given that neither she nor her hon. Friends had tabled an amendment to remove the provisions in schedule 1 on the disability committee. She responded that I was urging her to do something that she had not the power to do, but that she hoped to be in ministerial office soon—I thought that that was rather optimistic of her. Forgive me if I misunderstand the procedures of the House after nearly five years here, but I thought that any hon. Member could table an amendment on Report. The hon. Lady chose—quite properly, I must say—not to table an amendment to remove the provisions on the disability committee, but she was incorrect to suggest that it was not in her power to table such an amendment.
	I am rather attracted to amendment No. 16, which refers to the make-up of the commission. There is a contradiction between providing for a disability committee in the Bill and not providing for a race committee. I am entirely happy that the Bill provides for a specified commissioner with a disability in paragraph 1(3)(a) of schedule 1, but it is a contradiction that the Bill does not provide for commissioners representing the other five strands. The Bill contains contradictions.
	I understand that there are different ways of approaching things. Judge Rosalie Abella said powerfully about a similar situation in Canada in the 1980s that equality sometimes means treating people the same and sometimes means treating people differently. That is one of the touchstones by which I live when I consider discrimination measures. Equality is not mechanical. The hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is no longer in the Chamber. My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) was very restrained when she heard from him the arguments that she knows viscerally from her experience as a black woman in our society—I know of them one removed after talking to people—and we had 20 or 30 years ago. The hon. Gentleman certainly looks less than 40. Where have some Conservative Members been for the past 20 years? I salute the Conservative Front-Bench spokesmen for at least getting up to about the end of 20th century with this stuff and welcome the fact that several Conservative Members have struggled into the 21st century, but some Conservative Back Benchers really have a pretty antediluvian approach to the matter. We should not have to go through such arguments again and again in the Chamber and elsewhere and it is sad that we must do so.
	From my hon. Friend the Minister I seek assurances regarding the staff, and in particular an explanation of the contradictions between the treatment of disability and the treatment of race. That is not to say that the other four strands are unimportant, I hasten to add, but disability is mentioned at least twice in the Bill—in relation to a commissioner with a disability and a disability committee. In race, we are dealing with an incredibly important strand to me, the Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton, South-West, which was previously represented by that notorious racist Powell. Such matters are extremely important in my constituency. There is a contradiction in relation to a race committee and I beg the Minister to explain that contradiction. If she does not, amendment No. 9 and those that flow from it will be extremely attractive to me.

Eleanor Laing: I accept the Minister's assurances, and I will not press my amendment. I look forward to the publication of the first year's accounts.

Meg Munn: I beg to move Government amendment No. 11, in page 12, line 1, leave out '24(1)(a).' and insert '24(1).'.

Meg Munn: Government amendment No. 11, like most of this group, is minor and technical. It corrects an anomaly in referencing in the Bill. Our intention is to oblige the commission for equality and human rights to inform the recipient of an unlawful act notice of the effect of the commission's clause 24 power, which enables it to apply to a court for an injunction in England and Wales or an interdict in Scotland to prevent discrimination. As drafted, the commission's obligation is restricted to informing the recipient of an unlawful act notice of its power to apply for an injunction in England and Wales, but not Scotland. That is not our intention. Amendment No. 11 therefore extends the obligation on the commission to include a reference to its power to apply for an interdict in Scotland.
	The motion to transfer clause 28 is also a minor and technical matter. It does not alter the content or effect of the clause but moves it to the end of part 1. Clause 28 gives powers to the Disability Rights Commission for matters concerning rented accommodation in Scotland in the period before the new commission is operational. It is therefore more appropriate for it to be located at the end of part 1 under the "Miscellaneous" heading than with clauses that confer enforcement powers on the commission for equality and human rights.
	More important, in its current position, the commencement of the clause would, because of clause 42, end the transitional period that precedes the new commission taking on its powers in October 2007. Unlike the other clauses, the commencement of which ends the transition period, clause 28 does not confer any powers or duties on the CEHR.
	The substance of the Disability Rights Commission's equivalent powers for rented accommodation in England and Wales, which were conferred by the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, will come into force on 4 December 2006. As explained in Committee when the amendments were tabled, we are working closely with the Scottish Executive to ensure that the DRC's powers in relation to Scotland come into effect on the same day as in England and Wales. The transition strategy for the commission has been planned to allow time to ensure that the most suitable candidates are appointed to the board. Ending the transitional period prematurely by leaving the clause in its current location would seriously jeopardise an effective transition. It is therefore necessary for the clause to be moved as proposed.
	Amendment No. 12 is also a minor technical amendment, which, I hope is self-explanatory. It simply corrects the grammar of clause 46(3)(b). It makes no change to the effect of that paragraph.
	Amendment No. 15 is a more substantive amendment, responding to concerns raised earlier as well as in the fourth report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. In Committee, the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) tabled amendments to modify the exemption for schools of a religious character from the discrimination provisions. I promised to consider his arguments, which appeared to have some substance, and the amendment is the result. The Government are committed to maintaining the status quo as far as the right of faith schools to operate as such is concerned, and that necessarily means that they must be free to discriminate on the ground of religion to the extent necessary to make that a reality. In view of that need, faith schools are currently exempted entirely from the provisions specific to educational establishments.
	We remain convinced that faith schools must be exempt on admissions and on provision to pupils of access to any benefits, facilities or services. In common with other schools, they are also exempt regarding the curriculum and acts of worship or religious observance organised by or on behalf of the school. However, the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon argued that making it lawful for faith schools to exclude a pupil or subject a pupil to any other detriment on the ground of religion or belief goes beyond what is needed to protect their position. We have given the matter much consideration since Committee and officials have been in discussion with the Anglican and Catholic Churches.
	Exclusion from school is a serious matter that neither the Government nor schools take lightly. Existing guidance for schools sets out that a pupil's behaviour must be the only factor to consider in matters of exclusion. It therefore would not be right for faith schools to exclude an existing pupil purely on the ground of religion or belief. I do not believe they would wish to do that but it would be wrong to give the impression in the Bill that the Government are in two minds about the matter. We therefore propose to remove that exclusion.
	Detriment is a wide concept that is loosely defined in law. We have been trying to identify any actions that constitute direct or indirect discrimination, falling within that term, that faith schools would wish to take, that they would be justified in taking and that would not be adequately protected by other exceptions to the measure. So far, we have drawn a blank.
	On the other hand, it is possible to think of unreasonable and unjustifiable actions—and, let me say, highly unlikely ones—that the exception might appear to allow. Hence our conclusion that we should also remove that exception. It is unnecessary and risks giving the wrong impression. Let me make it clear that nothing about the amendment is intended to suggest that we believe that faith schools are likely in practice to discriminate against children of other faiths or of none. In the absence until now of legislation on such matters, I am not aware of any evidence to the contrary. The amendment simply recognises that exceptions to discrimination law must be tightly drawn.
	During the passage of the Bill, the education exemptions, especially those regarding faith schools, have been the subject of much consideration and debate, not to mention a raft of amendments. That has demonstrated the depth of feeling, the importance and necessity of exemptions and the need to strike the right balance between the protection of pupils and the needs of schools. We have listened to and carefully considered views from both sides of the debate and believe that we have now struck the right balance. However, the Bill contains regulatory powers to alter, add or remove any education exemptions. We believe that those powers are crucial, since if, in practice, there is evidence that the exemptions for schools are not working as we intend, the necessary changes can be made, following full consultation with all key stakeholders.

Meg Munn: I thank my hon. Friend for tabling his amendments. As hon. Members might be aware, the other place had an extensive debate on the issues raised, but I am pleased to make the case here.
	On amendment No. 21, we have said consistently throughout consideration of this Bill that it is not our intention that the new commission will provide legal assistance for every meritorious case. It will simply not have the resources to do so, any more than the current commissions can support every case, as they do not have the necessary resources that that would entail. We have said consistently that it is our intention that the new commission will use its enforcement powers in an effective and strategic way. That applies equally to its power to assist individuals in bringing proceedings before a court or tribunal. We cannot see the case for placing an express obligation on the commission to consider every application. In practice, it will need to consider all applications if it is to identify which, if any, it wishes to support. As a public body, the commission has an implicit obligation not to act unreasonably, and could be challenged if it ignored applications that it received.
	Amendment No. 22 seeks to add casework to the list of legal assistance that the commission can provide alongside what is already listed—legal advice, legal representation, facilities for the settlement of a dispute and any other form of assistance. Our view is that that amendment is also unnecessary, as the commission for equality and human rights will be able to provide casework advice under the powers contained in clauses 13 and 29. Clause 13 will allow the commission to provide general advice and guidance on matters that are not the subject of legal proceedings. Where legal proceedings are envisaged, casework advice is included within the reference to legal advice and representation in clause 29. Specifying casework separately would cast doubt on whether the references to advice and guidance and legal advice and representation cover casework and imply that it is something different, which it is not.
	Amendment No. 44 would permit the commission to meet the costs of the other party in the event that an individual that it was supporting lost the case before a court or tribunal. At this stage, I should make it clear that the commission may meet any costs awarded by a court or tribunal against an individual that it was supporting. This is the case with the current commissions and will be so for the new commission. However, the amendment seeks to go further than securing that position. It would create a power for the new commission to meet the costs of the other party even where no costs had been awarded by the court or tribunal.
	Hon. Members will doubtless be aware of the concern expressed in the other place about small firms and charities being treated unfairly or oppressively when the commission uses its enforcement powers. There was extensive debate in the other place on that matter and I am grateful for the opportunity to set out our thinking on how the new commission will engage.
	First, we do not have to fear unreasonable or oppressive action by the commission. The commission will work primarily through promoting good practice, helping bodies comply with the law and fostering constructive links with a wide range of bodies, including small businesses and charities. The commission will need to be sensitive to the concerns of its stakeholders. If it fails to do so, it will lose authority and public support. It will, of course, need to consult on its strategic plan, which will include its legal and regulatory strategy. I hope that that alone should provide reassurance against the commission taking an arbitrary or unreasonable approach. However, I recognise that it is possible that a small organisation could find itself defending an action brought with the commission's support, but there are checks and balances that ensure that a body in this situation is not disadvantaged. Most legal proceedings on discrimination are brought in employment tribunals. Employment tribunals are specifically designed to have straightforward procedures that make formal representation unnecessary.
	I am not persuaded that we should give the commission the power to meet the costs of the other side in such circumstances. The commission will use its power to support individual litigants in proceedings that it believes will have a strategic effect. It would be inappropriate for the commission to then meet the costs of the other party. I do recognise the concerns but there are sufficient safeguards in the Bill to prevent this situation from occurring.

Meg Munn: The legal effect of this amendment is highly ambiguous and for that reason alone the Government must oppose it. In particular, the reference to clause 31(1) does not work. If the purpose is to override the victim test in section 7 of the Human Rights Act, we do not think the amendment is clear enough to achieve it. However, it is clear that the amendment is intended to deal with a matter—namely, the powers of a person established by Act of the Scottish Parliament—that falls within the area of devolved competence of the Scottish Parliament. It is therefore not a matter on which this House can properly legislate without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.
	If and when a Scottish commissioner for human rights is established by Act of the Scottish Parliament, it will be possible to consider whether any further provisions need to be made in relation to reserved legislation to give the commissioner the powers that he or she needs to carry out their duties. If so, then the appropriate way to deliver the objective would be by way of an order under section 104 of the Scotland Act 1998. Such an order would be taken forward by agreement between the Government and the Scottish Executive, and would be subject to scrutiny here in Parliament.
	The Bill to create the post of commissioner is still only in its early stages of scrutiny at Holyrood. It is simply premature for us to be second-guessing the debate that will take place there about the powers of the proposed commissioner. I trust that the hon. Gentleman has been reassured.

Dominic Grieve: Given the amount of time left, this intervention will be exceptionally brief, but I have waited long enough for it. In Committee, we considered at great length the issues surrounding discrimination on the ground of religion. I continue to have some concerns about two areas. First, clause 45 provides that one may discriminate against somebody who is bringing an allegation against one only if one is satisfied that that allegation is not being brought in good faith, as well as being false. That is an almost insurmountable test. Of course it may be—
	It being Nine o'clock, Mr. Deputy Speaker proceeded to put the Questions already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [21 November 2005].
	Amendment negatived.
	Mr. Deputy Speaker then proceeded to put the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at that hour.

Alan Johnson: No, I will not.
	Clause 10 emphasises in law the priority of ensuring good community relations and highlights race and faith in particular. The CRE will remain in existence until 2009. This will enable it to play a full role in discussions about how the commission works. The passing of the Bill does not determine how the commission will run, but it is the start of a new conversation and process in which black and minority ethnic communities will be fully involved. We are committed to an orderly transfer of the race agenda, and, in co-operation with the Home Office, we will immediately initiate a work stream that will directly involve members of the black and minority ethnic community and others, in exploring how, for example, the race equality and good relations functions of the new commission could be framed, including its important focus on race and faith communities. In this way, we will strive to make sure that race and faith communities have full confidence in the new commission and that the commission's governance structures and strategic plan are designed in a way that reflects their concerns.
	Part 2 of the Bill introduces a new protection against discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services and in other areas on the grounds of religion or belief. After concerns were expressed during the Bill's passage, we brought in additional powers to extend that to sexual orientation. We will issue a consultation document on that shortly and plan to exercise the power by October, at the same time as on religion and belief.
	Going forward, we are committed to tackling similar discrimination in other areas, including on the grounds of age and transgender. Those issues will be tackled as part of the discrimination law review, which will lead to a single equality Bill in the life of this Parliament and will simplify 30 years of equality legislation, ironing out many of the anomalies that we know exist. We will issue a Green Paper on the review's findings before the summer, which will ensure that we can also give full consideration to emerging findings from Trevor Phillips's review into the fundamental causes of inequality.
	The fourth part of the Bill places a duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity between men and women. We are currently completing consultation on that and hope to bring forward regulations in April next year.
	The Bill is about replacing privilege with opportunity, discrimination with equality, and fear with serenity. Those are noble ambitions, which I know Members on both sides of the House support. I commend the Bill to the House.

Eleanor Laing: For once, I can say yes to the Secretary of State. He hopes that we will all support the Bill. He commends it to the House, and so do I. We have supported it from the beginning, and indeed since before the general election. I support it because its main cause is freedom—the freedom of every individual in our society to live their life as they choose to, or, indeed, as they have to, for it is not always a matter of choice, regardless of their circumstances, whatever they may be.
	Throughout the Bill's passage, we have spoken about the six strands of equality. It is not, in fact, about just six strands. The principle of the Bill is an integrated approach against discrimination for any reason, and not just for the six strands we refer to technically. It is therefore essential that the new commission should command confidence. I hope that the cross-party support that the Bill has received this evening and throughout its passage will give the project a good start. I look forward to the outcome of the equality review, to which the Secretary of State referred, and to our taking the whole matter of achieving further equality another step forward at some time in future.
	I pay tribute to all the bodies that have been involved for a long time in the preparation of the Bill and in discussion of its content. Those bodies include statutory bodies, pressure groups and charities, which have contributed over a long period to our debates. Their knowledge and experience have been brought to bear on the Bill through Members of this House and of the other place and that is why we have had such constructive and informed debates. I hope that everyone who has urged the introduction of this legislation will feel that an enormous step forward has been taken when we give this Bill its Third Reading this evening.
	At the end of a long process, I also wish to pay tribute to several people, including the many Ministers involved in the Bill. In particular, I pay tribute to the Minister for Women and Equality, who has been reasonable and polite and displayed considerable forbearance during the consideration of the Bill. I also pay tribute to the passionate Back Benchers on both sides of the House who have contributed to the debate and to the Liberal Democrat and other party spokesmen, who have been amazingly constructive. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), who has contributed considerably to the Bill but has not been able to give us the benefit of his wise arguments this evening, except for some 50 seconds a short time ago. The debate this evening has been the poorer—

Eleanor Laing: My hon. Friend is right and I hope that we will hear more from my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield at some other time.
	I also wish to mention my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), who has been committed to this issue for many years, and my hon. Friends the Members for Hornchurch (James Brokenshire) and for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Mr. Evennett), who served on the Committee. I also pay tribute to all the officials who have worked so hard on the Bill. They are often forgotten.
	I must place on record the fact that I remain concerned about four areas. I hope that my fears will be proved wrong, but I am still worried about, first, unnecessary bureaucracy. I hope that that will be avoided. Secondly, I am concerned about extra burdens on small businesses, which must not be allowed, because that would undermine employment and the economy. Thirdly, I am also concerned about the risk of excessive and dogmatic adherence to political correctness. It has not happened during the passage of the Bill and I hope that it does not happen when the Bill becomes law. Fourthly, I remain, of course, concerned about costs. However, I have said enough about taxpayers this evening and I do not need to repeat my arguments.
	I hope that my fears are not realised. We all want these measures to succeed. I do not believe that it is possible to achieve equality, because every individual is unique. I was brought up to believe that "You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you." That is what this Bill is about and I give it our unqualified support.

Diane Abbott: I wish to welcome the principle of a unified commission and I congratulate Ministers on introducing this important legislation. I also wish to congratulate those groups in the black and minority ethnic communities—Operation Black Vote, the 1990 Trust and the race advisers to the Mayor of London—who have worked so hard to put race on the agenda in the context of these debates.
	On Second Reading, there was little discussion about race, and this evening we have managed to put that right. I welcome the unified commission in principle, and I think that the Bill—and the thinking behind it—represents an advance for all our communities. However, I remain concerned about the position of issues of race in the new commission, the finances available for work on race in the new commission, the law enforcement work of the new commission and, perhaps above all, the support that will be available for local race equality councils. As I said on Report, some of the most valuable work funded by the CRE was carried out by local and regional equalities committees.
	With those caveats, I welcome the Bill. We have listened carefully to what Ministers said about race and we shall follow how things unfold as we build the new commission, but it would be a mistake for Ministers to believe that the debate about race and the commission is over: for my hon. Friends and I, that debate, and the debate on how the commission does not simply do what the CRE did but improves on it, has only just begun.

Evan Harris: My hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) wanted to be here, but has been called away to another engagement. She has asked me to pass on her thanks to those who have worked on the Bill. She subscribes to the views that I am about to set out.
	The Bill is a liberal one; the capital L could apply to the Equality Bill introduced in the House of Lords by my colleague, Lord Lester. I understand that the Government will try to bring it forward soon, but that is a debate for another day. The Bill is liberal because it provides for a mechanism whereby the human rights of individuals can be if not guaranteed, at least looked after and promoted by the commission. It is also liberal, as it attempts to end certain aspects discrimination in a reasonable and balanced way.
	One of the joyous things in the experience of those of us who have worked on the Bill is that we have not heard the negative charges, previously made in the House, that there is an equality industry or a discrimination lobby. I am grateful to Members on both sides of the House that we have confined the debate to the issues, without straying into those areas.
	The Government are generally to be commended on the Bill, especially in its present form, as it has been significantly amended in both Houses. The commission to be set up under part 1 is a good structure; it does not include everything that the Liberal Democrats wanted, but it scores well in comparison with the ideal set out in the Paris principles. Government amendments, especially in the House of Lords, have improved the Bill, particularly part 1. It is appropriate to recognise that and to pay tribute to Ministers. The fact that there were no Divisions in the Standing Committee and only one on Report—not on a principle, but on the timing and speed of the promotion of transgender equality and non-discrimination—shows a spirit of collegiality and a shared sense of purpose in bringing the Bill to the statute book.
	Much of the credit must go to the Ministers who steered the Bill through the House. I echo the views of the Secretary of State about the way in which the Minister for Women and Equality handled the complexities of the legislation. It was not straightforward and, as we saw today, sometimes she had to deal with points and concerns expressed by Members on both sides of the House, which is never easy. She carried it off commendably.
	The Home Office is stocked with Jekyll and Hyde-type characters. I hope that it does not upset the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), when I say that he is an effective Jekyll; I will not flatter the Hydes by telling him who I think they are. It was certainly a pleasure to work with him, and the fact that the Government were willing to listen and to make changes—albeit not all that we wanted—made it a productive experience.
	As the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs. Laing) said, we have benefited from Back-Bench contributions, especially from the hon. and learned Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) in Committee and her equivalent—if I do not offend both of them by describing him thus—the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). He was not a member of the Committee but he has always had concerns about these matters and puts them clearly.
	We still have concerns about part 2, but the fact that the House of Lords removed harassment issues from the Bill left a core in part 2 that we could all generally support. As Ministers will know, there are concerns about the existing width of the exemptions under clauses 57, 58 and 59 and, indeed, about whether clause 60 is strictly needed, given that organisations that seek to use a test should have an ethos that requires that test. Nevertheless, the Bill is much better than before, and credit is due to the Government, as well as Opposition parties, for reaching this point.
	It was a pleasure to serve on the Committee with the hon. Members for Epping Forest and, of course, for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve), both of whom are forensic yet charming—a rare combination in lawyers, unless someone is paying them a great amount of money.
	Part 3 is a crucial and welcome addition to the Bill, because we all know the problems that people face with discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. However, the fact that pressure needed to be applied to provide part 3 hints at the hierarchy of discrimination and inequalities. We therefore wish good speed to the discrimination law review, to produce a single equality Bill and then an Act, which will end the debate about hierarchies once and for all. Of course, part 4 is key, because we will not achieve full equality for men and women until public authorities have a positive duty to promote such equality.
	In conclusion, we are still in the early days of the era post the Human Rights Act 1998. A great deal needs to be done to raise public awareness about people's rights and, in particular, about public authorities' duties to ensure that they do not discriminate against people or breach human rights—but we hope that, one day, they will have a duty to promote human rights. It is with great pleasure that I wish the Bill well. I hope that it receives Royal Assent and look forward to its enactment. I hope that the whole country benefits from the measures that will be set out in statute that we have debated these past few weeks and months.

Jeremy Hunt: I am very pleased to have the opportunity to speak after the hon. Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman). Like me, she has concerns about the impact of the battle against discrimination on people with disabilities. There are fundamental opportunities for the disability agenda, and I wish to direct my comments at that.
	Some hon. Members may have read the story on the BBC website last week about the disabled man who was left stranded at Euston. He had arrived 20 minutes early to catch a Virgin west coast train to Liverpool. He had booked help but, when he arrived at Euston, he was told that no help was available and that station staff were too busy. He called three times before eventually being told by someone from Network Rail that it was just one of those things. Sometimes one misses a train. The person who missed the train happened to be Bert Massie, the head of the DRC, but it is an example of the discrimination and difficulties that disabled people face every day of every week.
	The story illustrates the fundamental role of the DRC. It is not just a body that campaigns for appropriate legislation and for the implementation of that legislation; it is also a body that must highlight abuses of the system and use the power of publicity to highlight the problems. It is vital that that campaigning role is not compromised in the new much larger body, and that is why I very much support the amendments eloquently proposed by the hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz).
	There have been huge advances on the disability agenda in the past 10 years, starting with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which was piloted through the House by the shadow Foreign Secretary and former leader of the Conservative party, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). The National Disability Council and the Disability Rights Commission were established. The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 got rid of discrimination involving access to education, and EU regulations in 2003 ended exemptions for certain categories of employers. Of course, the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 was passed last year. Running through all that legislation has been an understanding that when dealing with discrimination against disabled people, the issues are different from those involved in other types of discrimination.
	There is a need for an element of positive discrimination for disabled people. Most legislation on race, sexuality and gender makes no mention of a specific gender, race or sexuality. We must give people with disabilities proactive help if they are to enjoy the opportunities that the rest of society enjoys. An element of judgment must be applied when implementing disability legislation. We require employers to make "reasonable adjustments" and public authorities must have "due regard" to promoting equality of opportunity. Such judgment is required because significant costs are attached to disability legislation. It is right to spend that money—for example the rail industry will spend £142 million on upgrading rail carriages between now and 2020—and the costs must be carefully thought through.
	It is not enough for people with disabilities for us simply to eliminate negative attitudes and stereotypes among those who do not have disabilities. We can be as progressive, enlightened and compassionate as we like, but that alone will not solve the problem of the old lady who is stuck in her flat because of her disability. That is why we must realise that different measures are necessary if we are to deal with the problems faced by people with disabilities.
	I welcome the Bill from the perspective of the disability agenda, but I urge the Secretary of State to consider two vital roles that the new commission must have when it is set up. First, it must carefully monitor the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 2005, especially in respect of transport. I have mentioned the upgrading of rail carriages, but there is a question whether audio-visual facilities are needed on buses so that people can hear and see when they reach the right bus stop more easily than they can at present. There is also a question whether the legislation should be extended to aviation and shipping. For example, there have been well-publicised cases of disabled people who have tried to get Ryanair flights, but have been treated in a way that most hon. Members would find utterly appalling. The sooner the Act can have teeth to stop such incidents from happening, the better for thousands of people with disabilities.
	Secondly, I hope that the new commission will look beyond the DDA to new areas in which it might have a role. I hope that it will examine whether disabled people should have a right to independent living and whether elements of the DDA should be extended to schools and communal areas, which are not covered at the moment. I hope that the commission will consider whether there should be a more generous interpretation of mental illness rather than the current fairly strict one. I hope that it will examine whether the Act should apply to volunteering, which is a vital way back into independent living and the world of work for a number of people with disabilities. I hope that it will consider whether something should be done for carers, who are vital to improving the life chances of many people with disabilities, but are not especially helped by legislation as it stands.
	I hope that the commission will examine the link between disability and poverty. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that the percentage of people of working age with disabilities who live in income poverty is double that of people who do not have disabilities. It also found that that number is rising, while the percentage of children and pensioners living in income poverty is falling.
	Finally, I hope that the new commission will consider bold measures to eliminate discrimination in areas such as health care, housing, benefits and social services, in all of which there are substantial battles that must be won if we are to secure equality of opportunity and equality of esteem for people with disabilities.
	Disability is not something that affects only a small minority: one in seven people in this country have disabilities and one in 10 care for someone with disabilities. I will turn 40 this year; by the time I am 85, there will be four times as many 85-year-olds as there are now, and many of them will have disabilities. I therefore hope that as we move forward with the new commission we will continue to make progress for people with disabilities. We must be vigilant against losing the focus that to date has been so successful for people with disabilities and others. We need to recognise that we are at the start of a journey in relation to tackling discrimination and improving the life chances of people with disabilities and we must match the legislative progress that we have made in the House with practical progress on the ground. Only by doing that will we achieve equality of opportunity and equality of esteem for disabled people and ensure that they become not just aspirations for those who seek to eliminate prejudice, but realities for those who suffer it.

John Bercow: The fifth of April 2005 witnessed the first of the two Second Reading debates on the Bill that this House has had. On that occasion I had the privilege of expressing my strong and vociferous support for the Bill, and in a thinly attended Chamber I took 25 minutes to do so. Tonight, I shall be much briefer because I am conscious that others wish to contribute to the debate.
	This is a first-class Bill. It was given an extremely pithy and eloquent recommendation to the House by the Secretary of State about half an hour ago. It will establish the commission for equality and human rights. It will legislate to prohibit discrimination in the provision of goods, services and facilities on grounds of religion, belief or sexual orientation, and it will impose a duty on public authorities to promote gender equality. These provisions are all extremely welcome, and in two specific senses. First, they are welcome in the sense that they are not merely aspirational or the expression of a theory. They will make a concrete difference in terms of improving people's lives, which has to be the ultimate test of the appropriateness of a particular piece of legislation. Secondly—this is not insignificant either—they send out a signal as to the type of society in which the House believes, and I believe that the legislation is good.
	In all courtesy to the Minister, whose stewardship of the Bill I greatly respect, I think that she would be unwise—and she is not—if she were not fully to heed and reflect on two of the most powerful, impassioned and convincing speeches that I have heard in the House in a long time, namely those from the hon. Members for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) and for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott). Their speeches gave a real meaning to the idea, old-fashioned though it might be, that one comes into the Chamber and listens open-mindedly to a contribution with no preconceptions and is influenced in one judgment by that speech. That is the best tribute that I can give to those two hon. Members. My thinking was influenced as they spoke.
	The Bill was good before and, as a result of amendments in the course of legislative scrutiny, it is better now. I think that it is unlikely that the House will be divided tonight, but if there are people who are genuinely opposed in principle to the Bill, they might wish to test their opinion in the Lobby. However, I strongly support the Bill and if there is a Division, I shall express that support by going, with pride, through the Aye Lobby.

Grant Shapps: I originally wanted to call the debate, "Financial crisis in Hertfordshire hospitals" but a wise-looking man in the Table Office said that only the Government can declare a crisis in this country so I had to resort to calling it merely, "Financial deficit in Hertfordshire hospitals". However, if one were to ask my constituents, many of whom are watching the debate, it is a genuine crisis.
	In Welwyn Hatfield and Hertfordshire, circumstances developed that led to an acute hospital, which was responsible for all manner of health care, becoming little more than a community or cottage hospital. It all started approximately six years ago, when the original two trusts merged to form a single East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust. At that time, we were reassured beyond doubt that it was simply an administrative merger that would make the trust's running costs much lower.
	Time went on and we found that the Tewin children's ward was being closed down. To our surprise and without notification, the ward was initially closed at weekends, and then permanently, so that people who would otherwise use the Queen Elizabeth II hospital in Welwyn Garden City were expected instead to take their children 14 miles up the motorway to the Lister hospital in Stevenage. That might have been okay if, as we were promised, the paediatric assessment unit had remained open for the first 24 hours of stay. However, constituents learned with some surprise last year that the paediatric assessment unit would also be closed at night, leaving a PAU in place only in the daytime.
	Far worse and much more specific, the deficit of some £49 million in Hertfordshire health care this year has compounded matters so that, in East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust, a rescue plan has been put in place. It is always said that it is bad news when the experts are called in to talk about how to make further cuts, and so it was when PricewaterhouseCoopers came to the East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust to explain how more money could be saved to try to right the deficit that had got out of control. A deficit amounting to £49 million over the next three years has been projected. As a result, in addition to losing the children's ward and the night-time operation of the paediatric assessment unit, we are now to lose all children's services during the day, all our blue-light accident and emergency services, and all our maternity services. My twins, Tabytha and Noa, who were born there just 20 months ago, will be among the last children to be born at that hospital because the maternity services are to close. That is not all. All operational activity is to cease. There will be no further operations if the restructuring plan is put in place.
	The list goes on, and it is an extensive one. Similar situations are being experienced by my colleagues around the country. This is all in the name of recovering from a financial deficit that is simply going to put lives at risk in Welwyn Hatfield and other parts of Hertfordshire.

Michael Penning: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a disgrace that these cuts are being implemented for reasons not of clinical need but of financial mismanagement?

Grant Shapps: I am pleased to hear about those increases for the PCT but does she accept that the problem in Hertfordshire is with the NHS acute trusts and not the PCTs, who are running in balance? The trusts are massively in deficit, by £43 million.

Caroline Flint: I appreciate that but that is another reason why these trusts have to be brought into balance, as there can be knock-on effects in terms of primary care delivery. Therefore, primary care trusts who oversee this area in terms of spending obviously are mindful of what is provided in the hospitals, but are mindful also of what they want to fund in the community.
	The hon. Gentleman will agree that, as I said earlier, a number of services could be provided outside of hospitals. Indeed, a number of services could help in the long, medium and short term to prevent people from turning up in hospital. There is accident and emergency provision in the hon. Gentleman's area, but decisions have been taken as to who should provide a blue-light service and who should not. But as I understand it, that does not mean that that there is no 24/7 accident and emergency coverage in his area.
	Collectively, the eight Hertfordshire primary care trusts receive huge allocations. They received in excess of £858.5 million in 2005–06—a figure that will increase to £1.1 billion in 2007–08. Given such investment, all NHS bodies should be able to plan for, and achieve, financial balance each and every year. I should point out that the majority of NHS organisations are both delivering service improvements and living within their set budgets, but we recognise that a minority of organisations face challenging financial agendas. The Department and the strategic health authorities are trying to work with them to help restore financial balance.
	Turnaround teams have been set up to support the NHS in identifying opportunities to deliver services with greater cost-effectiveness and to make financial savings. The teams consist of financial and management experts who are experienced in resolving financial problems and helping organisations to manage their resources better. West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS trust, and East and North Hertfordshire NHS trust, have built on the work already commissioned by the SHA by undertaking baseline assessments and by bringing in PricewaterhouseCoopers to help address some of the financial difficulties that they face. A meeting took place on 10 January. The SHA received feedback from the turnaround teams' work and it is reviewing the results.
	Before I discuss efficiency savings and the recovery plans, I want to point out that, despite the issues raised by the hon. Gentleman, there have been some significant developments in the county in terms of supporting new ways of addressing the provision of health care. For example, the Watford health village project, which will lead to the redevelopment by early 2013 of Watford general hospital and the immediate surrounding area, is proceeding well. One partner, the East of England Development Agency, recently agreed to contribute £750,000 over the next two years to pre-planning work for this scheme. The Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire postgraduate medical school, based in Hatfield, opened in September and will enable local NHS organisations to attract support and to retain the best talent in the region.
	Through the surgery centres project, most elective surgery in Hertfordshire will take place in new, dedicated centres on the Hemel Hempstead and Lister hospital sites. The project is progressing well. Lister's £2.3 million cardiac suite was funded through the national lottery New Opportunities Fund and through the local NHS funding that we provided. It opened to patients in September 2004, and in its first year alone it cared for some 1,500 people from throughout east and north Hertfordshire. There is a new combined breast cancer and magnetic resonance imaging unit at the QE2 hospital, and the revamped Hertford county hospital was officially opened on 9 September. It will provide a range of services and open its doors to local people to provide a range of treatments. The capacity being built through those developments is doubtless welcomed by MPs throughout the county.

Caroline Flint: We have given many new opportunities to the people of Hertfordshire, which is why waiting lists are down. People used to wait years for operations; now, waiting lists are at record low levels, and there are more doctors and nurses in the county. Discussions have taken place as part of examining future health; indeed, there was a huge consultation on how hospitals could be redeveloped. I understand that there was widespread support for the proposals. They were supported by cross-party representatives, local people and local groups. Even the local media recognised how important is the opportunity of having a new hospital.
	On the question about the private finance initiative, of course it is right that the Department should keep the hospital PFI programme under constant review to ensure that it delivers value for money. A number of PFI schemes are reaching a critical moment in the contracting process and are being subjected to the sort of detailed scrutiny that the public would expect of a major procurement project. That does not mean that there is a freeze on hospital PFI projects. We have just given two NHS trusts—Oxford Radcliffe and Portsmouth Hospitals—the go-ahead for construction. Obviously, the issue is kept under review but we continue through the initiative to deliver the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS.

Stewart Jackson: In my constituency, the difference between the outline business case and the current costs estimate for the PFI project is 82 per cent. Can the Minister give me a cast iron guarantee that where an outline business case has been received for a new project, it will be honoured by the Government and the project will come to fruition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps) also said?

Caroline Flint: I have three minutes left and would like to say something about efficiency savings and recovery plans since that was the main focus of the hon. Gentleman's debate.
	Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire strategic health authority is working closely with the East and North Hertfordshire NHS trust and the West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS trust to see how to deliver the efficiency savings needed to address the deficits incurred. They have to be addressed. It would be unfair to the those in the rest of the NHS who are achieving balance if we did not ensure that that happens. West Hertfordshire plans efficiency savings of £12 million a year between now and 2008–09. I understand that it will consider issues around improving clinical efficiency, which is expected to deliver savings in the region of £4.3 million. There are examples of better ways of providing clinical services; in an Adjournment debate recently, for example, one of my colleagues described how one consultant was doing as many operations as two had done by addressing the turn-around in orthopaedic surgery.